Entropy
by ncfan
Summary: Exercises in futility. Drabble Collection. Ryuuken, Uryuu, others. Gen. Angst. Complete.
1. 01: Paranoid

**Title**: Paranoid**  
>AN**: Okay, I'm not entirely sure how many chapters this drabble collection is going to end up having. What I'm shooting for is at least fifteen, but no more than thirty-five. Hope you all enjoy.  
><strong>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>Ryuuken sighs as he tries to quiet the crying baby in his arms. For such a small, usually quiet infant when he cries Uryuu's small, insistent voice takes no time at all to fill up the entire house.<p>

"Having fun?" From the couch, Sayuri is sporting the wry suggestion of a smile, her elbow balanced on the arm of the couch and her palm on her forehead, disrupting her hair. She's tired and looks it, blue eyes starting to droop even if they still spark with humor.

He nods to her and shifts his son's weight. "Great fun."

Uryuu's cries redouble and Ryuuken flinches as the sound hits his ears, again shifts the child's weight so their eyes lock. For a moment, Uryuu just stares at him, blue eyes wide.

"You think you exist to give me trouble, don't you?" Ryuuken asks his son ironically, brow furrowing.

Uryuu starts to cry again and Sayuri hops to her feet. "Ryuuken!" He just stares at her and she rolls her eyes, holding her arms out. "Give him here."

Miraculously (or maybe not, Ryuuken suspects), Uryuu calms the moment he is passed from his father to his mother. Cries cease, the bright red tinge in his cheeks fading to pink spots at the top of his cheeks. His eyes close and his head lolls forward, pillowed against his mother's bony shoulder. Sayuri hums something soft and soothing against his head, pressing her cheek to downy hair.

Ryuuken pinches the bridge of his nose. "Well I guess we know what he wanted now."

Sayuri shakes her head, another half-smile forming on her lips; she's too tired for smiling. "It's _not_ you. Well, it is, but my guess is it has a lot to do with the fact that you smell like you've gone through a pack of cigarettes."

"One," Ryuuken defends himself. _Or… maybe two or three. But not a whole pack. I don't think I've _ever_ gone through a whole pack in a single day._

"Uryuu doesn't seem to like it much, all the same." Sayuri squeezes his wrist briefly. "Listen, he needs to go to bed. And frankly," she yawns, "so do I." She heads off down the hall, sleeping baby in tow.

Ryuuken remains in the kitchen, frowning. Maybe he's just paranoid, but it seems like Uryuu will quiet and stop crying for everyone _but_ him.


	2. 02: Late

**Title**: Late**  
>AN**: Not much to say here. Conversations taking place in the dark at nearly 1:30 in the morning are bound to be stilted and a little strange.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>He had hoped he'd be able to slip into bed without Sayuri noticing, but the moment the box springs start to creak, she turns over and a soft groan hits the air. Ryuuken winces, remembering just how light of a sleeper his wife is; <em>Damn it<em>. She (though it's difficult to see in the pitch black darkness) props up on her palms in bed, the box springs squeaking in protest.

"You're home late." The alarm clock reads _1:23_ in fluorescent letters, and Sayuri's soft voice is perfectly even—too even by half.

Ryuuken sighs. "I know." The apology in those words isn't very well-hidden, and even weighed down with sleep he knows she can hear it.

"Never mind that. We both knew you were going to be running ridiculous hours from the start." Sayuri sinks back down onto the bed. "Remember to take your glasses off this time," she can be heard to murmur, and Ryuuken grimaces; he forgot last night.

A few minutes pass in silence, in which Ryuuken doesn't fall asleep and Sayuri doesn't go back to sleep either; they've both grown accustomed to staring up at the ceiling in situations like this.

"So…" This time, it's Ryuuken who starts up the conversation; most of their conversations, at this point in time, take place in the dark, lying in bed while waiting for sleep to slip in through the cracks in the walls. "…Uryuu…" He's not entirely sure what to say.

Even though it's dark, he can tell she's smiling. "Very good today. Asleep the whole time, except when he got hungry; his appetite's getting better."

"Oh…" Still, Ryuuken isn't sure what to say "…that's good, I suppose."

No matter how hard he tries, none of this comes naturally to him. Fatherhood is still a strange and foreign concept after six months, and he still has to work to dredge up the proper emotion; Uryuu doesn't seem to notice, even if Sayuri does look at him perplexedly at times. She can't quite figure out what it is on or in his mind that's keeping him distanced from his son.

"You suppose?" The dark shape next to him is Sayuri lifting her head, frowning incredulously; again, Ryuuken doesn't have to be able to see her to know what sort of face she's making. "You _are_ tired, aren't you?" Her excuse for his utter lack of enthusiasm, the issue she doesn't want to face.

"Yes, I am," he admits openly. "Sayuri… Do you ever feel like you've walked into something and you have no idea of how to handle it?"

"Yes," she answers at once, a strange, whimsical note entering her voice. "Usually it's because the Hollow just won't die." Oh, so _that's_ what she's doing when she slips out of the house on Sundays; Ryuuken bites back another sigh.

"Why?"

"…No reason." Ryuuken leans over and kisses her hair tiredly, wishing he could say more but unable to find the words.

Silence reigns again, and they're asleep within fifteen minutes.


	3. 03: Notes

**Title**: Notes**  
>AN**: Not much to say here.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>Ryuuken frowns, bemused as he catches sight of the piece of paper taped to the refrigerator. It's eleven o'clock and he's only now getting home—not an unusual occurrence. He's actually hungry for once, which explains why he's in the kitchen.<p>

He pulls the paper down off the refrigerator and holds it up to his eyes.

_Ryuuken,_

_Considering you still can't be persuaded to get home at reasonable hours, I feel obliged to tell you that I don't have any intention of waiting up for you anymore. If you're not home by ten I am going to __bed__. _

_I still say you work entirely too hard. Do not attempt to protest this fact; you shall surely __fail__ (Nobody wins an argument with me, buddy). If I poke you in the ribs I can almost feel the bones and if you go another night without supper I will __force__ you to eat. No husband of mine is going to starve to death under any circumstances, especially not if there's plenty of food waiting in the refrigerator. All the same, your devotion to rendering aid to the sick and the injured is certainly admirable; I just think you take it to unhealthy levels._

_Oh. Uryuu stood up today. He didn't stay up very long; fell flat on his face, poor thing. Thankfully he was on the couch at the time. He wants me to tell you (well, he didn't __tell__ me, but you get my drift) that the next time you have occasion to feed him, please check the milk first to make sure it isn't too hot. I could hear him wailing all the way from the bedroom last night. This isn't the first time you've done this; the kid's going to start thinking you've got something against him._

_Well, here's hoping you get home before the crack of dawn so you can actually get a decent amount of sleep tonight._

_Love,_

_Sayuri_

Pulling a pencil out of a drawer, Ryuuken turns the paper over on the kitchen table and scribbles out a reply.

-0-0-0-

The next night, when he gets home (late again), Ryuuken almost smiles when he sees the considerably less composed scrawl of the paper taped to the refrigerator.

_I beg your pardon? Could you repeat that, I think I got a bit of water stuck in my ear for a moment._

_You're__ calling __me__ unreasonable? Really? __You're __the one who'd take three days to notice if I were to take Uryuu and leave because you get in so late and leave so early, not me. And don't you say a word about my eating habits; I eat more than you do. Yes, I know I'm tiny; it's __natural__ for a woman of five feet to be on the small side. Perfectly natural._

Ryuuken keeps on reading; _Wait for it._

There's a bit written below the initial note, the writing slightly more composed. And, sure enough…

_Reading that, that __thing__ you left on the refrigerator this morning a second time, I think I understand now. And Ryuuken, I have but one thing to say to you:_

_Your sense of humor is __abominable__. The sooner you come to terms with that, the better off the world at large shall be._

_Sayuri_

_P.S. Uryuu really does think you've got something against him now. He started crying when I got the part you wrote about him. He's a baby, Ryuuken; that was just low._


	4. 04: Logic

**Title**: Logic**  
>AN**: I think this collection is going to be a bit longer than I previously imagined.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>"I'm going out for a little while." That she's pulled on her long, thick dark blue coat is all the indication Ryuuken needs of that, and considering how much Sayuri hates the cold and the snow, it's more than a little surprising that she's choosing to head out now. Last year she more or less holed herself up in the house until the temperature came back to sixty five degrees and above.<p>

Then, the familiar, musty reiatsu hits him from… somewhere, maybe nearby—it's hard to judge distance with all the human spirits overlapping it—and Ryuuken can guess just what it is drawing Sayuri outside into the deep December cold, persuading her to disregard her frankly visceral hatred of winter.

"You're going to get yourself killed one of these days."

She quirks a smile. "So you say."

In the living room, Ryuuken watches from the couch as Uryuu wanders aimlessly around the room—having yet to so much as utter a word, the child does so in silence—examining everything he comes across, from the dusty blinds (naturally, sneezing ensues) to the electrical outlet—

_Okay, I think it's high time exploration be brought to an end. _Ryuuken crosses the room and pulls Uryuu into his arms before small fingers can touch the outlet. "They say curiosity killed the cat," he informs his son, frowning slightly. "You'd best pray they didn't mean small children as well."

Uryuu, predictably, does not respond. He only stares at him with a near-disturbing calm, and Ryuuken's frown deepens. Children of just over a year old shouldn't be able to adopt such piercing stares.

Sayuri's sitting on the couch when Ryuuken returns, and she smiles and strokes her son's hair absently. She's finally regained, in full, the energy that pregnancy sapped her of. The life's back in her pale face and that all-too-familiar light has returned to her eyes.

_She can hear the calling singing in her blood, just like my father and all the ones who have passed beyond. I'm still deaf to it, at least. Ah, well. She wouldn't be Sayuri is she was at all grounded in the living world. But still…_

Sayuri's soft voice breaks on Ryuuken's pensive thoughts. "I know your mentality, Ryuuken." There, that's the voice of someone getting ready for… for… _something_, though to be perfectly honest Ryuuken's not sure what.

"And I still stand by it," he remarks, shifting Uryuu so the boy sits more securely on his lap; if he takes his eye off him for even one second Ryuuken's sure he'll go straight back to the electrical outlet near the door. "I don't see why the dead can't be left to care for their own, and why we can't just leave well enough alone."

"You can," Sayuri replies airily. They've had this conversation before, and the only time it ever got remotely heated was the first time; teenagers aren't exactly known for sporting perpetually cool heads. "You're a grown man; your decisions are your own. But let's just look at it this way. If Hollows come to large enough numbers and they can't find any disembodied souls to feed on, they eventually start going for living prey. So the way I see it, hunting down Hollows helps the living too."

As usual, her logic, however straightforward or twisted it may be, has hit the mark and Ryuuken can't find any reasonable argument against it. "So I take it your confidence in my ability to look after Uryuu alone for a few hours has increased recently?"

She shrugs. "You're getting a little better. You don't burn the milk anymore and you've stopped dropping ominously cheesy one-liners." Apparently she didn't hear the 'curiosity killed the cat' comment. "I don't think that showing absolutely no confidence in your parenting skills is going to solve anything." As much as Ryuuken would like to say that he doesn't think that looking after Uryuu for a couple of hours is going to make him feel any less awkward around their child, he can't quite find the words. He never has been able to, in situations like this.

Sayuri starts to get up, but Ryuuken tugs on her wrist, brow furrowed. "Just be careful."

She smiles brightly. "I always am."

_I've seen scars on you that tell me you're not. There's a reason our people tend to die young, you know._

As she slips out the front door, Ryuuken suddenly wonders why he didn't say goodbye.

Oh well. Goodbyes can be said any time and she'll be back in a few hours anyway. Simple logic.


	5. 05: Mute

**Title**: Mute**  
>AN**: Nothing to report, except this is going to be a bit of a weird ride, kids.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>It's cold <em>(the coldest he's ever felt, to be sure<em>) here, the snow shuddering under footsteps and the occasional blistering breeze. Ryuuken can hear the policemen talking to themselves, inane chatter (_look at him, watch his face, his eyes_), casting cagey glances at him from miles _(five feet_) away.

You may hear tell of something interesting, something of a deeply morbid attention grabber. That life is nothing more than a series of thoughts and ideas and dreams that are never allowed to finish. They're never allowed to be fully born, until the very last dream of the very last idea of the very last sentence is cut-off mid-breath, never to see the light of day. Ryuuken's sure that, if Sayuri had any breath left in her lungs with which to speak, she would agree with him. _This is very interesting_, she would say, with that familiar gleam in her eye.

But Sayuri's not in such a way as to do that, or anything else.

When Ryuuken's heart starts to skip beats, he knows it's only a sign of worse to come. All of a sudden the world is mute, no sound at all—and isn't that the strangest thing? Senses shut themselves off for a little while and he may as well be alone.

There's still a smell in the air that has nothing to do with blood—Death and the musty, unearthed smell of a Hollow. Even if those who have called him here aren't spiritually sensitive they ought to be able to smell it, but they don't.

He leans down, certain that he's being ignored now. There's snow gathering gently on her long eyelashes and crusting her purple lips and when he brings his hand away from her hair it's sticky with blood and—_Oh God._

A broken doll is still beautiful, even with her skin bathed in blood. But this is too real, Ryuuken can feel his eyes burning and dampening and something in his throat screaming (_maybe it's him_), and his thoughts are cut off mid-breath.

Life's sick punch line: _Death is real and life a farce that leaves everyone gasping for air and nursing their crushed loves._

There's something he wanted to say, and now he can't say anything at all.


	6. 06: Heavy

**Title**: Heavy**  
>AN**: Yeah, this is definitely going to have more chapters than I previously thought.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>Ishida Soken has seen it all before, but experience doesn't stop that heavy feeling from invading his bones. Maybe it's just arthritis or a cold setting in, but he knows better.<p>

There's childhood illness, and early death, and the horrors of war. Nagasaki was the worst of those horrors that he had to experience, and he can still hear the screams in his sleep in the warmest of the summer nights. It is forgiven and accepted, but never forgotten.

The loss of a spouse; moreover, the loss of a wife before she even hit forty, and Soken knows exactly where his gray hair came from.

So many other things too, but they all blur together in the span of the past sixty-one years.

But it's still weighs heavily, all of it. Even if he knows how to let go, it still weighs down.

_My… Another name to add to the list of the dead._

And Ryuuken with his thirty years isn't nearly as prepared to handle grief as his father. Too rigid, too unwilling (_either too proud or just too stubborn_) to bend when the wind blows, and too defiant of the whole process of death in the first place to accept it when it comes.

His son's skin, still wet with the remains of weeping, is exceptionally cold beneath his hands. A bit like a melting block of ice that still retains its frigid temperatures, and Soken can't help but think that Ryuuken looks about frozen solid now.

Soken's trying to talk to him (And why shouldn't he? No matter how estranged they are he's still Ryuuken's father and Ryuuken is still his child.), and Ryuuken has his eyes firmly shut. He rubs his son's moist cheeks, trying to chafe warmth back into the gelid skin as taut as stretched canvas and reddened as an open wound, and Ryuuken says nothing, enduring but not welcoming it. His pain is etched into his skin, a lifetime of broken faith converging on one place, but he won't say a word.

_I'm so sorry—This should never have happened to you—Too young, too soon—You must see; it isn't forever—If you need me…_

Those are the words a father usually speaks to his child after that child has endured a loss. Even if that child is an adult, because, Soken knows, a parent will always see their child as a child, even if there are gray hairs on the head of their son or daughter. Those are the words, he supposes.

And Ryuuken isn't hearing a word of it. Even now, whenever Soken opens his mouth, he closes his ears.

Soken supposes he shouldn't have expected it to be any different. That heaviness that comes when Ryuuken grits his teeth and jerks himself away still hurts, though.


	7. 07: Suspect

**Title**: Suspect  
><strong>AN**: Not much to say here.  
><strong>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>It ends up being Isshin who takes care of Ryuuken and Soken who is left to deal with his grandson, listening to words filter through thin walls. Garbled and weary they come, not quite clear enough to be understood and discerned. Probably just as well, all things considered. It's indecent to spy on grief once having been told not to and Soken doesn't want to imagine the sorts of things Ryuuken lays bare in the turmoil of his grief; these things are too private even for family.<p>

_Here's hoping Kurosaki-san can make him listen to the words that I couldn't._

Uryuu seems content enough in his company, at any rate, at least as content as can be expected.

Soken sighs as whispering continues to make its way to his ears through the thin walls and Uryuu shifts slightly in his sleep, head pillowed on his grandfather's leg on the couch. Like most children, even if he's too young to understand he can tell something is wrong, and that sleep is noticeably troubled.

He's too young to understand what's going on and for that Soken suspects he will thank God for the rest of his life. He's young enough that he won't be able to remember any of this, and for that Soken _knows_ he will thank God for the rest of his life.

But other troubles will come as a result of a child having no memory of his mother.

"Good luck to you, child," the old man mutters grimly, running a hand through his grandson's fine dark hair. "I suspect you will need it in the years to come."


	8. 08: Work

**Title**: Work  
><strong>AN**: Again, not much to say here.  
><strong>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>Ryuuken goes back to work two weeks after his wife dies.<p>

All of the sundry rituals following a death have been completed.

The funeral was horrible. Masaki was crying silently into a handkerchief the whole time, her eyes shut and swollen throughout the whole thing and Ryuuken saw people he hadn't seen in years, half of whom he couldn't even recognize through the haze fogging up his mind and thanks to the fact that they half of them changed so much. Ryuuken ended up holding Uryuu to his chest like a shield of some sort against what seemed like a perpetual line of people wanting to offer condolences.

The burial was over quickly and after that Ryuuken can't remember much about that day.

Now, back at the hospital, there is some semblance of normalcy.

Only his immediate supervisor knows why he hasn't been in at work, and no one else asks. It's too busy, there isn't enough time, and he's accepted back into the routine as though he never left.

So there's a pattern that he sets, from here on out. Work so hard that his veins feel like they're going to burst, from dawn till dusk, and don't think of anything but the work itself, treating wounds and infections and illnesses with that same professional calm that he's always had.

Almost as though nothing's happened.

Almost.

There's nothing Ryuuken can do for the dead, and there's nothing he particularly _wants_ to do for the dead. There's a reason the Shinigami are around; it's their problem to make sure dead souls don't end up eaten by Hollows, not his, and it's the Shinigami's business to make sure Hollows don't overrun the Earth.

Someone has to look out for the living, and who better than one whose heart still beats in his chest (_At least it does when Ryuuken checks)_? Ryuuken isn't entirely sure if he can term himself as 'alive'. 'Alive' is a word that has connotations that don't fit him anymore. However, that doesn't stop him from devoting all his attention to the looking after of the living; this is all he lives for now.

He can almost forget when he does this, forget everything that has happened to him outside of white-washed walls and beyond the reality of heart monitors and antiseptic and bandages.

But when he feels his heart start to race for no reason, Ryuuken knows that his mind hasn't bleached clean of memory. His ears ring, and he swallows, continuing to throw himself into his work and try to control every variable around him when he can't even control his own breathing.


	9. 09: Caretaker

**Title**: Caretaker**  
>AN**: Once more, not much to say here.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>Uryuu had to go somewhere once his father went back to work, and Soken reflects that, for once, he's actually somewhat grateful for Ryuuken's paranoia against private establishments (read: the day care system) when it comes to children. At least said paranoia guarantees Soken that he actually sees the grandson he honestly thought Ryuuken…<p>

Well, no use focusing on that.

"Let's see," Soken murmurs, balancing his grandson awkwardly in one arm as he opens the refrigerator, "if the milk's still good."

He gently places Uryuu on the ground and takes the carton in his hand, adjusting his glasses to examine the expiration date.

_Expiration Date: February 3, 1991_

Ah, a week from now.

"I think it's safe for you to drink," Soken addresses the young boy who is now staring at the carton with anticipation. Naturally, Uryuu doesn't respond and Soken goes about the business of getting a glass out of the cabinet. He might be called crazy for talking to an as of yet wordless toddler in the sort of way one might address a significantly older child (Soken can just imagine Ryuuken's face), but Soken can't be entirely persuaded to care.

It's nice, no wonderful, to not be alone anymore, to once again have the company of another even if it's only during the daylight hours. It's been a lonely life since Ryuuken picked up and moved to an apartment upon starting college. Soken doesn't see old friends very often anymore; for the most part they've either moved away or died.

The milk is poured into a small cup sitting on the kitchen table. Soken grimaces as the weight of the child in his arms makes his joints scream. "Trust me when I say that having people to talk to is not something you should take lightly," he remarks to the child perched on his lap. Of his own accord, Uryuu reaches forward for the cup. His small arms strain until his grandfather brings the cup within reach. Uryuu drinks eagerly from the cup, gulping down the milk quickly in his thirst. "A little more slowly, dear. It's not going anywhere."

Yes, there will be some issue with Hollow extermination. Obviously, Soken can't leave Uryuu alone for any length of time while he's in his care (He has no intention of leaving him alone, at any rate). Oh well; there will be plenty of time for that at night.

The milk sloshes dangerously in the cup. "Careful."

It's not like there's anyone else available to do this anymore, and there's always room for another child.


	10. 10: Teething

**Title**: Teething**  
>AN**: The thought of this was just beyond hilarious. Also, though it's uncommon for a child to start teething as late as fifteen months, it's not impossible. Also, just to clear things up, I have no idea what year the manga's supposed to start in, timeline-wise, so I just put the storyline of _Bleach_, as far as the first chapter of the manga goes, as starting in 2005.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>Considering Uryuu was asleep when he came to get him Ryuuken thinks he can be forgiven for not noticing until he got home.<p>

At first, he doesn't know what's going on. The child's calm until the car's motor cuts out and Ryuuken reaches down to get him out of the car seat. That's when Uryuu wakes up, and that's when he starts crying.

_Oh, good grief; I didn't even smoke anything today._

No matter what he does Ryuuken can't calm Uryuu down. It's when they get inside that he notices blood on the rim of his son's mouth. Sure enough, when he checks, there are in the child's mouth two erupted teeth.

_Well, I suppose that _this_ might stand as a justifiable reason to cry._

Once Ryuuken manages to register the fact that Uryuu, at nearly fifteen months, is _finally_ teething, it occurs to him that he hasn't got a clue what to do about it. _I'd completely forgotten how children tend to react to this._

It doesn't take long for him to start thinking frantically of something, anything that Uryuu might be willing to gnaw on. Uryuu's incessant wailing, which only seems to have heightened in intensity since entering the house, doesn't help at all.

Then, Ryuuken remembers the teething rings in the bathroom drawer.

That doesn't help either. Uryuu entertains the thought of gnawing on the green ring for maybe ten seconds before spitting it out and howling even louder.

Ryuuken stares at him, wondering if this is the cue for his mind to start unraveling.

_Well damn._

-0-0-0-

The ringing on the other end of the phone stops abruptly as Soken picks up on his end.

"Hello, who—"

Ryuuken abruptly cuts off the pleasantries. "Father, is there a reason why you didn't tell me Uryuu was teething?"

On the other end, Soken can be heard sighing. "You didn't give me enough time. If you'd actually waited a minute I would have told you." There's a distinct reproachful note in his voice.

"How long is this going to last?" Frankly, Ryuuken doesn't know enough about the inner workings of a small child to pinpoint how long it takes for all of a child's milk teeth to come in. However, Soken, having had to take care of a child himself, probably has some idea.

"It may take him a few months or a few years for all of the teeth to come in."

_Delightful._

"However, the pain should stop being overwhelming much sooner than that. You cried your poor little lungs out for about three weeks when you started teething and was mostly quiet after that."

"Ah." Ryuuken grits his teeth and swallows his pride further down for a moment. "Father, what exactly, if anything, did you have that Uryuu could chew on to relieve the pain." He prays the pleading note in his mind isn't bleeding through to his voice.

"I used a carrot; he seemed content with that."

_A… carrot._ That headache that's coming on has absolutely nothing to do with a child's crying."…I hope you at least washed it off first."

"Of course I did," comes the affronted reply.

With that, Soken takes the conversation in a slightly different direction. "Ryuuken, considering I can't hear Uryuu over this telephone, I'm going to go on the assumption that you've found something that he will chew on. I know it's not carrots, since you don't like carrots. What _are_ you using?" the old man asks curiously.

For a moment, Ryuuken pauses, unwilling to answer that question. Then, he sucks in a deep breath and replies. "My fingers."

Ryuuken can guess the sort of reaction Soken's having on the other end of the phone. "Can you repeat that? I think there was some static."

_Good grief. _"My fingers," Ryuuken repeats as flatly as he can manage. "He's drawing blood, and I can't make him let go." He glares sourly at Uryuu. Uryuu is sitting in his lap on the bed, two small hands firmly wrapped around his father's left hand. He's putting those two teeth of his to good use—or not so good, if you were to ask Ryuuken. Blue eyes lift in an innocent stare. _The Devil take you._

The sound that follows over the phone is unmistakably that of peals of laughter. Face burning, Ryuuken hangs up before Soken can catch his breath.

"You really _do_ exist to give me trouble, don't you?"

Uryuu's only response is to sink his teeth in a little deeper.


	11. 11: Words

**Title**: Words**  
>AN**: We're reading absurdist literature in Lit class right now. While I don't buy into the absurdist tract, I do like some of the elements of the book. As such, I'm experimenting with using shorter sentences for a different effect.** Edit: **The more I looked at the original draft the less I was satisfied with it so I did some editing and made the structure closer to my normal thing.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>April 14 is a gray Sunday, muted by rain. The faint, shimmering song is on the roof and midday might as well be twilight as the lighting is concerned.<p>

Ryuuken sighs as the stronger wave comes near, wondering if it's too late to go back to work and leave Uryuu with his grandfather. He just can't find anything productive to fill the hours; overtime would be a better way to kill time than just sitting at home.

Uryuu is crouched at the window, watching the rain, round eyes studying the silver sheet with fascination.

_So easily occupied? _Oh well. Ryuuken might lodge complaints in other areas, but Uryuu has never had a problem with keeping busy. It's a small blessing; he can leave the toddler to his own devices for a few hours and paperwork can be done at home in peace.

Uryuu doesn't move as Ryuuken comes near. If anything, he doesn't seem aware of him at all. The blinds should probably be pulled down all the way; it's starting to get late— _or maybe it isn't and his eyes are just tricking him again— _and Ryuuken doesn't leave them up past mid-afternoon. Surely Uryuu can do something with his time other than watch the rain. It's about time for a nap anyway.

The blinds are peculiar in Ryuuken's eyes. In order to be pulled all the way down they must be rolled up. It's a strange way to get from point A to point B, there's no doubt about that. He sighs as the daily fiddling begins.

The rolled up blinds expose the sight of silver rain sheets in full. Uryuu frowns as he sees the rain, pressing a small, pudgy hand against the window.

Then, he looks up at his father. His eyes snap to wideness, something awakening inside of him. "What is it?" Uryuu asks, the slurring lisp of a small toddler thickening his tongue.

This is only the start. There will be other questions, more than Ryuuken cares to count. A floodgate has been opened, and after it cracks open wide Uryuu's curiosity is insatiable. He wants to know what everything and everyone is, blue eyes bright and open with the words and only answers can make them half-hooded again.

For now, Ryuuken licks his lips. This makes him cold in a way he can't understand; his throat won't at first allow for a word. Eventually, he works out the knot in his tongue with some difficulty, though his voice is still a little thick. "Rain."The child looks at him almost as though he understands— _and maybe he does— _something like recognition dawning in his eyes_._

After that, it's time for the nap. Uryuu lets out a slight protest when Ryuuken pulls him away from the window but ultimately he doesn't fight it, too tired and too small to do so.

Ryuuken recognizes those curious eyes. They're more like pools of dark water than anything else; they reflect the past and the future and never the present.

He knows who those eyes belong to.


	12. 12: Arthritis

**Title**: Arthritis**  
>AN**: I think this is what happens when you claim to hate your parent, discover you actually still care about them in some way and are unwilling to admit it, even to yourself.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>Eventually (after only seven years, roughly up to par with Ryuuken's observational skills when it comes to his family) Ryuuken does take notice of his father's arthritis. Soken's not entirely sure what gave himself away, but what he suspects happens is Ryuuken got wind of his doctor's assessment.<p>

Soken's been told to fill the prescription given to him. Well, he can't; what the doctor recommends doesn't come cheap and he doesn't exactly live on much. He's just going to have to get along without medication, even if his joints do feel like they're on fire.

"Father, do you still have the prescription your doctor gave you?" This question is asked one morning, Ryuuken's eyes narrowed against the sun as it pours in through the kitchen window.

When Soken doesn't hear him, Ryuuken's tone becomes considerably more brusque. "Father, do you hear me?"

"Manners," the old man chides gently. Just because he's getting old doesn't mean he's going deaf; he can still clearly define that particular tone of voice.

Ryuuken visibly grits his teeth. "I am not fifteen years old anymore," he says stiffly.

"Certainly not, but you're still my son. Now what were you asking?"

"I wanted to know if you still have the prescription your doctor gave you for your arthritis."

_Ah, so he's finally noticed that I _have_ arthritis. _"Yes, I do." He pulls it from a kitchen drawer and hands it over to Ryuuken, who adjusts his glasses as he holds it up to the light. Soken frowns. "Why do you want to see it?"

Ryuuken doesn't seem to hear; instead, he tucks the slip into his pocket and starts to leave.

_Oh good grief. _"Ryuuken, I can—"

The only answer Soken gets is the front door being shut in his face.

_No respect. You'd think no one ever taught him manners._

-0-0-0-

When, the next morning, Ryuuken hands over both Uryuu and a bottle of pills with roughly the same level of grace as a still-belligerent nation surrendering to its conqueror, Soken knows exactly what he did with that prescription slip. As before, Ryuuken doesn't give him time to object.

"Good grief," he mutters as he examines the practically microscopic directions on the bottle. "I can not believe," he remarks whimsically to his grandson, "that your father expects me to squint hard enough to read this."

Personally, Soken will never be quite sure why Ryuuken sees the need to insist on paying for his prescription, and no matter how much he tries, he can't make him stop. After the first three times or so, he relents and just decides to let it lie.

At least the pain has mostly gone away. He doesn't even have to pay for the medication.


	13. 13: Sick

**Title**: Sick**  
>AN**: I don't know why, but to me Uryuu really looks like someone who was sick a lot as a kid.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>Despite himself, Ryuuken braces himself against the sound when another bout of coughing comes from his son, Uryuu's shoulders shaking in cold even through the June heat. There's a reason, Ryuuken supposes, for that blanket draped over his shoulders.<p>

Uryuu moves as if to take the thermometer from his mouth and Ryuuken closes his hand over that of his child before Uryuu can reach it. "No, not yet."

Uryuu just looks at him with distinct discomfort gleaming in his bloodshot eyes, and Ryuuken can sense an accusation there even if Uryuu doesn't try to spit out bits of none-too-articulate toddler speech from between the thermometer. "It's nearly done," Ryuuken tells him. "Just wait a second."

Finally, the thermometer starts to beep and Uryuu is more than glad to relinquish the thermometer. Ryuuken sighs when he sees dents—teeth marks—on the thermometer and he sighs even more deeply when he sees the readout.

_100.7._

Well Ryuuken knows exactly what he'll be doing tonight—and tomorrow. What he doesn't know (probably mercifully, at the juncture he finds himself at now), is that he will be doing this again, and again, and _again_ too many times to count over the years, more times than most parents can claim to have to with their children. For right now, it's probably a good thing that Ryuuken doesn't know that Uryuu's inherited his mother's less-than-stellar health.

"That's just perfect," he mutters, putting the thermometer back on the coffee table. Without making a sound Uryuu presses closer against him, trying for any source of warmth he can find. Ryuuken grimaces and tugs the blanket closer over Uryuu's shoulders.

Here's hoping he doesn't get _him_ sick too.


	14. 14: Contagious

**Title**: Contagious**  
>AN**: The last line of the previous chapter was just too much of a set-up to ignore.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>When Ryuuken doesn't show up to pass off Uryuu to his father on Monday morning, Soken feels the need to make a house call. After all, Ryuuken just <em>doesn't<em> take days off anymore and though his son shows little concern for his feelings Soken likes to think that Ryuuken would at least call and tell him that he won't be bringing Uryuu over.

So he likes to think.

It's really not that far to walk from his house to his son's. They may seem to be worlds apart, but at a brisk pace it only takes about half an hour to forty-five minutes. Personally, Soken would have settled with just calling, but no one ever picked up the phone. After that, if Ryuuken knows anything about his father at all, he had to know that _that_ was when he ensured he was going to be receiving a visitor today.

And if he's not there, Soken has every intention of just sitting on the front porch until Ryuuken gets back. Damn the boy's insistence that they avoid each other.

In the end, Soken doesn't have to sit on anyone's porch. He knocks, there's a faint cry of "Come in", and he finds the door to be unlocked.

"Ryuuken, I—"

Soken's voice drops off into silence when he sees his son and his grandson both piled up on the couch. Uryuu appears to be asleep and Ryuuken's face is pale, eyes bloodshot.

"You're both sick, aren't you?" Okay, _now_ Soken understands why he has had no word from Ryuuken.

Ryuuken nods, swallowing with difficulty. "I can't remember the last time I've had such a persistent head cold. Don't come any closer," he says sharply to his father as Soken takes a step forward. "All that's going to solve is you're going to get sick as well."

Soken restrains a weak smile. "Well, I'm not leaving, if that's what you think. For all I know you could both keel over dead tomorrow."

The sight of Ryuuken trying to muster the energy necessary to scowl is an exercise in absurdity.

Oh well. Even if this probably isn't going to be all that pleasant, Soken can think of no better incentive for Ryuuken to get well than to be able to get _him_ to leave.


	15. 15: Gaze

**Title**: Gaze**  
>AN**: Not much to say here, except that Ryuuken can be an inobservant prat when it comes to children, especially his own.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>It's only the first time he notices, though it probably isn't the first actual time and to the grief of them both it won't be the last.<p>

Maybe it's normal for a toddler to have trouble making eye contact with their parent. Two months shy of his second birthday, Uryuu isn't much of a talker but when he does talk the words tend to come out in a consistent mixture of unintelligible babble and coherent sentences. The parts that Ryuuken can understand tend to be questions, questions and about anything and everything a nearly two-year-old mind can think of, and Ryuuken just now notices that Uryuu doesn't look at him when he speaks.

In the kitchen he feels a tug on his pant leg and looks down. Uryuu quirks a smile and stares down at the floor, swallowing as he starts the process of summoning words.

Ryuuken frowns slightly. "Uryuu, look at me when you speak to me."

With obvious reluctance he does so, blinking shyly. A half-whispered question follows, Ryuuken nods and gives a terse reply, and Uryuu darts away from his presence like a timid bird.

Ryuuken frowns again as something that nagged at him while they spoke makes sense.

Even when Uryuu was looking at him his eyes were on the ground.


	16. 16: Stupid

**Title**: Stupid**  
>AN**: According to my mom, my first emergency room trip was when I was about three because I jumped off my bed. Personally, I don't remember any of it.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>"Well I think we have discovered that chairs are not for jumping from." As though this wasn't already known.<p>

Soken sighs. Ryuuken gave him more than enough grief in different ways from this, but Ryuuken never felt the need to check if gravity was still working. He didn't even try that time when he climbed the ladder up to the roof the year the roof had to be patched; Ryuuken just sat up there with a stiff look on his face until Soken came up to carry him down. He curled his arms around his father's neck with a sort of weary acceptance of the scolding he was sure to get from his mother and the ribbing he was also sure to get from his uncle; Ryuuken never did explain what he was doing up there.

Now, Soken finds himself checking over a different child for any signs of bleeding or bruises or bones broken, _tsk_ing and wondering what ever it was that possessed Uryuu to think that maybe, just maybe it was a good idea to clamber up on to the kitchen chair and then do a dive off of it. At the same time, he wonders what possessed _him_ to take his eye off the child for even a second; everyone knows they aren't supposed to remove their attention from small children for any amount of time.

For Uryuu the answer is simple. He is two years old, children of that age do stupid things and tend to be just a tad stupid themselves (Or incredibly stupid; Soken's opinion on that alternates depending on the day). For Soken, well… Maybe he's just starting to get inobservant in his old age.

"As far as I can tell, you seem to be alright." The worst of the stunned, shocked sobbing has since subsided. Uryuu's face is still tear-stained, scarlet; sclera are bloodshot; chest still heaves. He wriggled uncomfortably when his grandfather made probing jabs at his stomach and sides, but there seems to be no broken ribs. And there is no blood.

"Young man, I can guess you won't be doing that again."

Uryuu nods hastily and Soken just barely manages to hide the cold-cracked laughter behind his smile as he hugs him. His wife's half-affectionate, half-exasperated term for him was "permissive parent" but Soken, pragmatic, would like to put forward that the pain was probably lesson enough to keep Uryuu from jumping off a chair again.

As exasperating and worrying as it may be, they all have to have that stupid phase at least once.


	17. 17: Snow

**Title**: Snow**  
>AN**: Not much to say here.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>For all that he doesn't seem to enjoy the cold much, Ryuuken takes note of Uryuu's fascination with the snow. That fascination isn't going to be fulfilled, however; what Ryuuken has also noticed is that Uryuu has gotten sick nearly immediately after both of the times he's let him out in it, so he's not going out into the snow anymore.<p>

(_There's something eerie about the image of his son lying down on the snow in the half-movements of a snow angel. Ryuuken whisks him away from the snow faster than Uryuu can find the breath to protest when he witnesses this.)_

"_Don't let Uryuu out into the snow," _he tells his father sharply. _"I don't care how much he begs; he gets sick every time."_

Soken doesn't need much persuading. He didn't mind winter when he was a young man but as an elderly one with arthritis the old man spends most of winter waiting for spring. Good enough.

When Ryuuken comes in the evening nothing looks at all changed. The sun allows the same paltry degree of light as in the morning and the yard shows no sign of having been tread except for his own footprints, still pristine and clearly visible. Soken did listen to him, then.

Uryuu looks noticeably bored and on the verge of falling asleep and doesn't so much as frown when his father lifts him into his arms. The only sign of protest Uryuu gives is coughing at the smell of cigarette smoke, curling his lip and turning his nose away from Ryuuken's coat.

It's when Ryuuken opens his car door to buckle Uryuu into the car seat that he remembers the date.

_A year. It's been a year._

The cold is piercing and gets down deep into his bones. Ryuuken licks his cracked lips and shuts the door so Uryuu won't get any more blasts of the icy December cold.

When he goes home, he'll probably end up finishing off the pack of cigarettes in his coat pocket, to take the edge off of the snarled knot in his chest.


	18. 18: Language

**Title**: Language**  
>AN**: Not much to report.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>Uryuu is sick again and he and Ryuuken both are stuck awake long into the night—Uryuu's too sick to sleep and Ryuuken's incapable of sleeping with the sound of that incessant coughing going straight through the too-thin walls.<p>

If he can't sleep Ryuuken might as well return to some of his medical texts he hasn't had a chance to read in a while; he might be the only one in the world who doesn't find this boring beyond all reason but that won't stop Ryuuken from reading them.

"Oh, so they're calling it _bipolar_ disorder now," he remarks to himself, frowning over the book and shaking his head. "I suppose manic-depressive wasn't good enough."

From his position on the couch, heavily bundled in blankets, Uryuu tilts his head weakly. "What's that?" he asks, a phlegmy throat slurring his words.

Ryuuken looks up and pushes his glasses up his nose. For some reason, when Uryuu asks that one specific image is brought to mind: Soken muttering in his slightly broken German (Ryuuken's grasp of the language is a bit better; not phenomenal but better), as he always did throughout Ryuuken's childhood when he was feeling particularly ironic or when he was saying something he didn't want those around him to understand. The only reason Ryuuken is reminded of his father is because he wore that same perplexed look on his face; it takes him a moment to realize Uryuu said it in Japanese.

"You don't particularly need to know," Ryuuken responds shortly. "It would give you nightmares."


	19. 19: Gray

**Title**: Gray**  
>AN**: Again, not much to say here. Be on the lookout for flying pigs.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>It's a few days after his thirty-second birthday that Ryuuken first notices, and for once, there's something about his own appearance that surprises him: silver hairs at his forehead, gray sticking out starkly from brown.<p>

He spots it as he walks past the bathroom mirror and only takes a negligent glance at his own reflection to drink in this change before leaving—there's too much to do and too little time to do it for Ryuuken to dwell on a change in his physical appearance.

Others might start to feel the world collapse in on themselves at the sight of gray hair. This is, after all, the herald of old age and subsequently death, and no one can pretend that Ishida Ryuuken is too fond of death.

He doesn't know how long it's been there. For all Ryuuken knows, those gray hairs could have been staring him back in the mirror without him knowing for days, weeks or months. Maybe years. Maybe even millennia.

However, Ryuuken has long since ceased to care. He's too busy to pay any attention to the sudden appearance of gray hairs on his head or think about the implication of what it means to have silver hairs at thirty-two. There's still air in his lungs and his heart still pumps blood.

If he doesn't feel pain and there's nothing visibly wrong with him, Ryuuken honestly does not care.

-0-0-0-

"Ryuuken…"

Maybe it's because he's still a little tired that Ryuuken sits down at the kitchen table in his father's house, resting one cheek in the palm of his hand. Uryuu's gone outside; even if he misses the snow he clearly welcomes the return of the sun and warmth in place of a biting cold.

_We all do._

Ryuuken feels a hand touch his forehead and he jerks his head away, shooting an unappreciative stare in his father's direction.

"You are devoured by silence, aren't you?"

Ryuuken has no idea what Soken meant by that. He's sure it doesn't matter.

_The old man's always spouting philosophical nonsense. If something he says makes sense entirely I'd best be on the lookout for airborne pigs._


	20. 20: Eyesight

**Title**: Eyesight**  
>AN**: There's no way the kid's been wearing glasses literally all his life.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>It's not apparent at first but when Uryuu starts running into things on a regular basis (comes away with a dazed expression, like—<em>That shouldn't have been so close<em>), Soken points it out to Ryuuken and Ryuuken feels the need to do some tests.

In home on Sunday, after a good half-hour of holding up fingers, of "_Which is more clearly visible?" _and of course the constant _"Are we done _yet?"'s, Ryuuken is forced to come to a conclusion. He sighs, runs a hand through his lightly graying hair and takes a look at his son. Uryuu is staring uncomfortably at him from his seat on the opposite sofa cushion, as though he's waiting to be reprimanded for some wrongdoing.

_Why does he always look at me like I'm about to hit him?_

Ryuuken looks his son squarely in the eyes and says, "You need glasses" in the sort of tone of voice one uses to discuss the weather.

Uryuu, of course, being at the stage between two and a half and three, doesn't understand what his father means by that. "What're glasses?" he asks, frowning and tilting his head.

Ryuuken sighs again, and takes his glasses off his face. "These—" he dangles them in front of Uryuu's face "—are glasses." His tone of voice goes without saying.

The child blinks at him like he's just done something a bit profane, and Ryuuken shakes his head. "Here." He flips them around and holds them up against Uryuu's eyes. "Is that better?" he asks quietly. "Do you see things more clearly?"

Blue eyes are comically huge—Ryuuken is irresistibly reminded of an owl, if owls could have blue eyes—behind glass lenses and Uryuu nods. "Yes, sir."

Immediately, the glasses are flipped back around and Ryuuken slides them back up his nose. "That's settled, then."

_Note to self: schedule an appointment with the eye doctor for Uryuu in the near future._


	21. 21: Glasses

**Title**: Glasses**  
>AN**: Not much to say.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>"How does it feel?"<p>

"Funny," Uryuu replies with a pensive frown, and Ryuuken bites back a sigh.

"You'll get used to it."

Ryuuken tries to remember when he first got glasses. If he recalls, it was when he was five—neither of his parents noticed anything wrong with his eyesight until a teacher pointed it out. The feeling hadn't been entirely pleasant; his classmates had sniggered and to his immense annoyance Ryuuken discovered that glasses made him resemble his father just a little bit.

"Listen, you're not to take these off except in the bath or when you sleep, understand?"

Uryuu looks a bit absurd wearing glasses. The thick lenses magnify his already wide dark blue eyes to a ridiculous degree and Ryuuken can find only one good thing out of all of this. Uryuu's resemblance to his mother is frankly painful—too much past in his face and not enough present. The glasses blur it up a little bit. It's still bad, but a little better.

Uryuu frowns again and starts to fiddle uncomfortably with the glasses. Ryuuken snatches his hands before he can do any real damage. "Enough. You're going to have to get used to it."

That slightly mutinous gleam in Uryuu's eyes makes Ryuuken suspect that this isn't going to be fun. _Great, delightful; somebody shoot me between the eyes before I can get a headache there, please._ If Ryuuken is wishing, once again as he does at least once a day, that his wife was still alive, it's because Sayuri would have had a much better idea of how to handle Uryuu than he does.


	22. 22: Reaction

**Title**: Reaction**  
>AN**: Nothing to report.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>This is a typical reaction (<em>terror, eyes screwed shut, fingers clenching his pant leg for dear life<em>) to the first time and Soken supposes he can't be surprised. The child is three years old and far too young and since when is the reiatsu of a Hollow _not_ overwhelming to a small child? That's the whole reason spiritually sensitive children as such easy prey for Hollows—they're so overwhelmed that they can't run away fast enough. And even for someone who's been seeing things like this for over fifty years, Soken has to admit that the sight of a Hollow devouring a Plus is still a sickening sight.

If anything, Soken wishes that he hadn't picked today to bring Uryuu with him on a grocery run.

"Uryuu." That calmness in the old man's voice is likely the strangest thing Uryuu has ever heard. "Go sit on that bench over there." Having gotten his grandson's attention, Soken gestures to the bench sitting some five feet away, perched on the border of the sidewalk. "Don't move until I come back." Not accustomed to disobedience, Uryuu does so, staring incredulously at his grandfather's shrinking back.

It's simple enough; this Hollow's a small one and it can't move very fast, something to do with a deformed leg. Uryuu's straightened a little on the bench when Soken returns, staring around wildly as though he expects the Hollow to come back at any moment.

"Notice anything different?"

A look of realization dawns over that small, still white face. "How did you do that?" Uryuu demands immediately.

_Well this is going to be an interesting conversation._


	23. 23: Photograph

**Title**: Photograph**  
>AN**: I referenced this in chapter 267 of _Time in Seconds, A Thousand Faces_. If you're interested, then by all means take a look at that.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>If truth be told, Ryuuken has not a clue what he's doing with that old camera—he's not even sure where it came from; just found it in a dresser drawer yesterday and it's still in working order. He's even less sure of why he's holding it or pushing down the button.<p>

Again has come the return of warm weather, a little earlier this year—it's early March. The infant grass is sweet and fresh, and it's early enough that it's not even slightly blighted by weeds or insects. Leaves start to unfurl and Uryuu's sitting in the yard under the single, rather small birch tree in the yard. Sunlight flashes off his glasses and the little boy looks up and smiles as the camera goes off. Small, rounded hands are gripped tight around smooth, cool, flat river stones that Ryuuken has never seen before in his life.

There's something truly unreal about the smile Uryuu wears on his face, something unsettling about the strange gleam in his eyes as, for once he makes eye contact with his father (suddenly the smile doesn't look quite so much like a smile and a little more like something somber), and something unnerving about the familiar way he tilts his head to one side as his lips split.

The picture slides out of the slot and flutters to the ground; Ryuuken plucks it off the grass

As quickly as the picture is taken and birthed, it is put away because Ryuuken hasn't been able to stand to look at most photographs in over two years (_too much a reflection of himself and other things; Ryuuken doesn't really like mirrors either, but that's another story_…) and that's not about to change. It's consigned to a desk drawer in the study beneath stacks of paper and manila folders, and there it stays.

Later on in the evening after Uryuu's gone to bed and a complete pall of silence has fallen over the house, Ryuuken sits at the chair in front of his desk and sinks into the silence, eyes narrowed and staring blankly at the panes on the window.

_I should probably close the curtains._

There's one photograph left sitting out and Ryuuken isn't entirely sure why it's even there, sitting on the edge of the desk like it is, ever-present. Every other trace of those blue eyes have been removed from his immediate sight (_there are things out of sight: a photograph that the one of Uryuu now sits with, stacks of clothes still folded neatly in dresser drawers, a bottle of calcium supplements that needs to be thrown out but hasn't_), but this picture still remains.

It was taken a good eight years ago, before they were married. Sayuri shoved the camera into Ryuuken's hands and grinned, that familiar _"I-have-an-idea" _gleam sparking in her eyes, and told him to move back about three feet and turn the camera sideways.

"_I want to remember what I looked like when I was young when I get old and gray. Should be a good laugh seeing how dopey I was back then."_

There are green trees behind her and despite Sayuri's self-deprecating, half-laughing words, there's something unspeakably gentle in her smile and her head is tilted slightly to one side. The green smell of summer is thick in the air and spreading across her skin, putting a pretty flush into those usually ivory-white cheeks.

There's still something of life in those dark eyes, but Ryuuken looks at that picture and realizes that the only reason he's kept it is because… He's not sure why he kept it. Ryuuken doesn't think he'll ever quite know why.

There used to be other photos around the house. They're all gone now, though; eventually Isshin and his father convinced Ryuuken to give them to him instead of just throwing them away, and Ryuuken doesn't bother asking them what he's done with them. He has no interest in those pictures; whatever they did with them doesn't concern him anymore.

_Why did I ever take that picture?_

As ever, it's the questions Ryuuken can't answer that bother him the most.

A soft sound comes from down the hall. After a moment of frowning and uncertainty Ryuuken realizes it's Uryuu crying. His sleep's been even more fitful than usual; he's prone to waking up crying at any time of the night. Ryuuken hasn't asked why yet and Uryuu hasn't supplied an answer.

"Alright." Even through walls that weary note can't be lost on Uryuu. "I'm coming."


	24. 24: Mother

**Title**: Mother**  
>AN**: If Ishida's mother is dead in canon like I suspect she is, he had to start wondering about her and who and where she is eventually.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>Uryuu's contact to other children and people outside of his small family is at best extremely limited. The only time he's ever spoken to someone other than his father and his grandfather was to the eye doctor who determined he was near-sighted and a cashier at the grocery store. They were both smiling people but still, somehow, Uryuu couldn't look them in the eyes.<p>

The only real exposure to people outside of his family are what Uryuu sees on the sidewalk when walking alongside his grandfather or when he sits in the car and stares out the window. He watches them, listens to them talk, happy, laughing children with their parents swinging them around, children who walk with their hands slipped into those of their parents', children who live the happy lives of those who have never known anything that might be termed _grotesque_ or _terrifying_ or _unnatural_. The moments of intense envy and at times even animosity Uryuu feels against these children before he regains control are enough to leave his head spinning.

Invariably, there's something different about all of these families that Uryuu picks up on immediately.

Other children have mothers, and he doesn't. Other children have mothers, young women and old, smiling women, kind and indulgent, stern and disciplinary, and always, _always_ loving, and Uryuu doesn't. Nowadays, he wonders why quite often, every day in fact, and when his father isn't looking, he steals into the study and slips the picture on the desk into his hands.

_Who are you? Where are you? Why aren't you here? Where did you go? Didn't you— _Uryuu's throat nearly catches on the last. _Didn't you want to stay?_

All he gets in response is a gentle smile and a look from dark blue eyes disturbingly similar to his own. No answers here.

"_Father?"_

_The sunset is heavy on the walls as it leaks through the windows like water from a flood. Ryuuken doesn't look up from his book but he does say "Yes?" in such a tone as though he was expecting Uryuu._

_Uryuu looks at the ground for a moment and licks his lips gingerly. "Where's Mother?"_

_Ryuuken is no longer reading the words on the page. His eyes go to hit the opposite wall, and the glassy sheen, too-bright and too-hard like glass eyes on a doll, unnerves Uryuu in a way nothing else can. "Dead," he replies shortly, in a voice that cracks a little like the fragile surface of an egg. "Gone."_

_Blue eyes go round as coins. Uryuu doesn't know what to say, until he does. "Oh." Uryuu understands what it is to have a voice like a breaking egg. "Why?" he asks in a small voice._

"_It's time to go to bed."_


	25. 25: Nightmares

**Title**: Nightmares**  
>AN**: This is referenced in a few of my oneshots, including _Moments of Dysfunction, Islands in the Sea _and _Break and Control. _Read them if you want (shameless self-promotion, I know, but this might make a little more sense too).**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>The nightly disturbances aren't a matter Ryuuken can ignore anymore once Uryuu takes things into his own hands and crawls into his father's bed.<p>

"_I have bad dreams," Uryuu admits reluctantly, not meeting his father's eyes and rubbing at his own less-than-dry eyes with closed fists._

"_Look at me." When he does, Ryuuken goes on. "Alright. You have bad dreams."_

"_Yes sir."_

_Ryuuken sighs. _About as forthcoming as usual. _"What exactly do you have bad dreams about?"_

_What Ryuuken is expecting is one of those mundane answers, like nightmares about scissors or dogs or deep water or things like that. These are the things small children have nightmares about, and Uryuu's such a nervous child that it wouldn't surprise Ryuuken at all._

_What he instead gets is the last answer he wanted to hear. "Monsters, the ones that eat souls." Uryuu bites his lip and starts to fidget with his shirt. "I think Grandfather called them Hollows?"_

Hollows. This answer is far from being what Ryuuken had expected, and it's opening a veritable Pandora's box.

His first thought is to curse his father for exposing Uryuu to this, because it's obvious who told Uryuu about all this. Ryuuken had hoped Uryuu would never find out, that _maybe_ he'd have a somewhat normal life where the word "Quincy" would never reach his ears. _Was that so much to ask for? _Well that's not going to happen now, and Ryuuken supposes that eventually Uryuu would have found out about Hollows on his own.

The thought that he apparently had a firsthand experience raises still more questions, none of them welcome.

His second thought is to immediately stop taking Uryuu to his grandfather's house in the morning but that's not going to work either. Ryuuken _still _doesn't trust daycare services and he's never so much as spoken a word to his neighbors in his life, so that's not going to work. He'll continue letting Soken take care of Uryuu but he'll be damned if he lets the old man suck Uryuu into this life too.

Nightmares. God, nightmares. Uryuu's not the only one who's having them; _Why is the past still following me, even now?_

The first time, Ryuuken doesn't notice until he wakes up that Uryuu's crawled into bed next to him. The second, he wakes up in the middle of the night, realizing that there's a small child lying next to him.

He makes eye contact with Uryuu. In the near-total darkness it's hard to tell, but judging from how wide those dark blue eyes are, he's terrified. _That scared of me, are you? _

Ryuuken supposes he could kick him out. He supposes he could make Uryuu face this on his own. He could if he wanted to.

He could, but the boy is three years old, and somehow, he just doesn't quite have the heart to do so. Ryuuken bites back a sigh, and pulls Uryuu closer. As he does so he can feel the tension going out of those small shoulders.

Uryuu can stay for now.


	26. 26: Distant

**Title**: Distant**  
>AN**: Sometimes, a child being precocious doesn't do them any favors.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>Uryuu still watches other families on sidewalks and in grocery stores—those are the places for watching families, after all, and sometimes with the raised voices of children and adults alike, ringing in the air and off the cool walls, they're impossible to ignore. Whether clutching his grandfather's hand or trailing after his father, Uryuu watches and draws observations.<p>

At first, all he notices are the mothers. It's the sort of thing a child with no mother can be expected to notice and all his eyes will follow are the women who attend to their children with nothing short of loving care. Uryuu watches in silence, and the more he does the more a feeling of strange, alien, half-alive grief wells up inside of him.

Eventually though, he starts watching the fathers as well.

Much the same as with his mother, Uryuu watches children with their fathers and gets the distinct impression that he is bereft of something important.

Fathers with their children… They're just like the mothers. Whether they're smiling or sad or stern or angry they're still so very loving. It's clear in their tones of voice and in their eyes. They love their children and they're unafraid to show it.

What Uryuu notices about any parent with their children is that they look, well, happy. Happy to be around their children. Smiling at them, hugging them, holding them, talking to them like they actually want to and don't consider it to be a waste of their time.

Uryuu's own father may as well be of an alien species from these people. Distant, all but silent, rarely acknowledging Uryuu's presence unless Uryuu opens his mouth to speak. Ryuuken shows little interest in him beyond make sure he's fed and clothed. Any moment of something resembling warmth is hit and miss at best—the closest they've come are the nights when Uryuu crawls into his father's bed after having a nightmare and Ryuuken lets him stay there.

In the manner of children time and time again when Uryuu looks at blame he first looks at himself. It's easier to change his own behavior than that of his father and maybe, just maybe, if he changes something about himself things will be different.

He thinks about it but after wracking his brain Uryuu realizes that he can't do anything to make things different between himself and his father. He doesn't even know what it is about him that makes Ryuuken so distant. All he has are a few hints that make no sense.

Occasionally, Uryuu's peeked beyond the door of the study and he's seen Ryuuken sitting in the chair, leaning back into it. He'll have the picture of Mother in his hand and the most inscrutable expression on his face. For some reason, Uryuu will feel his stomach burn and shrivel and he'll slip away before Ryuuken can see him.

The way he looks at him (_like he's trying so hard to see someone else, trying to put a face on top of the one he sees_) gives Uryuu the thickest, coldest sense of foreboding as well.

No matter what he does Uryuu can't figure out why Ryuuken is so distant. He can't figure out why he never smiles, why he never shows any sign of life around him, why there's only coldness and never any feeling of warmth.

_Why am I not good enough? What is it about me that makes your hands so cold when you pick me up? Why are you so cold to me? _It makes him angry; it makes him sad; it makes him guilty; it makes him scared. He's still trying and he's wondering just what the point is.

More than anything though, it's just confusing.


	27. 27: Water

**Title**: Water**  
>AN**: Not really much to say here.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>The faucet of the bathroom sink squeaks reluctantly into life and Ryuuken holds the glass underneath, sighing quietly as he tips it to his lips. The alarm clock reads about three thirty in the other room, he can't get back to sleep and there's work in the morning. Wandering around the hospital looking like nothing quite so much as a zombie isn't a prospect he finds attractive.<p>

_There's nothing for it; the next two and a half hours won't do me much good._

A small hand tugs on his pant leg, and Ryuuken looks down and makes eye contact with the reason he hasn't been able to get back to sleep since about midnight.

"I'll be there in a minute," he tells Uryuu, not quite meeting his eyes now but staring over the top of his head. "Go back to bed."

Uryuu hesitates and Ryuuken, tired, has to bite his tongue to keep from snapping at him. These are not the nights he enjoys. "You have nightmares. They are only dreams, not real." It's a fight to keep his voice calm and even. "There's no need to fear. Nightmares can't hurt you."

Uryuu looks anything but convinced. He pulls a face that looks like very much like he'd like to protest, and Ryuuken narrows his eyes.

That does it. Uryuu wilts under his father's stare, nods briefly and with a whispered "Okay" walks back down the hall.

Ryuuken gulps down the last of the water in silence and follows.


	28. 28: Cold

**Title**: Cold**  
>AN**: Apparently some people _really_ don't like for the thermostat to be changed.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p><em>Let's see; disorders of the liver, where would that be? <em>Flip through the endless pages again and again and still he can't find what he's looking for; maybe he's looking in the wrong text book. Ryuuken puts the book back on the shelf, takes another one out and starts to thumb through it. He has no intention of stopping until his curiosity is sated.

The door creaks open and Ryuuken looks around, eyebrows raised, as Uryuu shuffles in, heavily swathed in a quilt that drags the floor behind him. He almost looks like he's wearing a cape or the rough old cloak Soken wears, even during the summer months, to keep out the cold.

"I'm cold, Uryuu declares, staring up at his father with an uncharacteristically determined gleam in his eyes.

_Good grief. _Ryuuken puts the book down on the desk and cooks a finger to Uryuu. "Come here, them." With a sudden look of apprehension flitting over his face, Uryuu does, and Ryuuken puts a hand to his forehead. _Cool and perfectly dry. _"You don't have a fever," Ryuuken tells him flatly. If this is some sort of cry for attention on Uryuu's part he's got another thing coming.

Uryuu's small face scrunches up like crumpled paper and he shakes his head sharply. "I know I don't." There's a distinct mulish note to his voice. "I'm cold."

"Then get more blankets or go outside—I think you'll find it's more than warm enough out there," Ryuuken replies dismissively. "Don't come to me about it." A wave of the hand tells Uryuu it's time to leave.

_Liver disorders, liver disorders…_


	29. 29: Literacy

**Title**: Literacy**  
>AN**: Not much to say here, except it's a chapter with a bit of a lighter tone. Hope you all like it.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>He's seen him looking at the newspaper in the morning like he's trying to understand what the words say, trying to get past the wall of ignorance and read the words beyond. Elbows on the kitchen table, chin propped up on his hands and forehead creased in concentration. Uryuu just sits there in the mornings while waiting for cereal and milk, frowning down at the columns.<p>

Uryuu bites his lip when Soken brushes the newspapers away and picks up the spoon by the stem, balling his hand into a fist around it. He reaches over and grabs his grandfather's cup of tea when he thinks he's not looking, and smiles nervously and quickly puts it back when Soken catches him gulping down the tea. Insatiable curiosity strikes again. ("If you want some all you have to do is ask; there's plenty in the pot on the stove.")

The moment breakfast is over and done with Uryuu reaches up and pulls the newspapers off the kitchen counter, taking them back to the table to resume fruitless examinations.

When Ryuuken was young Soken took his cues from his son. When Ryuuken first started peeking at newspapers and the books his mother left lying around and his uncle's schoolbooks, that was the sign that he probably needed to be taught how to read and write. Of course, Soken didn't get the chance; the moment he told Isono about it she immediately started making arrangements and all but told her husband to shove off and let her handle it. Being an elementary school teacher gave her all the expertise she needed and Soken would only get in the way. Somehow, he managed not to be _too _offended by that.

Also, when Ryuuken started showing some curiosity about the Quincy lifestyle, that was when Soken knew to start training him. Yes, once upon a time, Ryuuken did show interest in hunting Hollows, even if he was never entirely too enthusiastic about it. Once upon a time, he didn't always hate the traditions of his forefathers (_dying religion, _so he calls it) with a fervor.

_How do I go about this? _Soken thinks to himself, watching Uryuu try in vain to make sense of the words on the front page.

They had books to help Ryuuken when he was small. However, when Isono got sick they (along with a lot of other things, Soken admits ruefully) were sold in order to help pay the medical bills and eventually the cost of her burial as well. It wasn't enough and they were in debt for years afterwards but there you have it and Uryuu doesn't have access to the right teaching tools.

_I suppose I could always ask Ryuuken… _No, that idea is shot down as soon as it starts. Getting Ryuuken, workaholic and running away from memories every day of his life to pay attention to something in his present for more than a few minutes at a time is well nigh impossible. Asking him to pay attention to his future is like asking him to never breathe again and still function normally.

There's always the newspaper. Soken supposes he could use the newspaper as a teaching tool, as soon as he found an article that _didn't _include something a small child didn't need to be reading.

He's not sure how other people go about it with their children, but to Soken it seems counter-intuitive to teach writing before reading. After all, how is anyone supposed to learn to write if they haven't got a clue what they're writing? It's completely mental. And the good thing is since Uryuu's left-handed like him, there won't be all those difficulties of a right-handed adult trying to teach a left-handed child to write or a left-handed adult trying to teach a right-handed child. That should make things a bit easier. He hopes.

_I… I think I can handle this. _Somehow, Soken thinks that taking down an army of Menos might be easier than teaching his three-year-old grandson how to read.

Oh well. No point in putting it off, and no matter what Soken has absolutely no intention of Uryuu going to school with no idea of how to read or write. That would be a nightmare.

"Come here, Uryuu," he calls to the child, gulping down the last of his tea. "I'll tell you what the words say."


	30. 30: Difficulties

**Title**: Difficulties**  
>AN**: I don't have much to say here, either.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>It was inevitable that there would be difficulties, and really, Soken can't help but think that this would be a lot easier if he were a lot younger. That would probably have helped a great deal.<p>

In the end, he hasn't had to use newspapers (Thank God; it would have been a true nightmare trying to find an article fit for toddler eyes). The neighbors from a couple of houses down were sending their youngest child off to college and were getting rid of a few old things to help pay the tuition; among those things were the sort of picture books small children would read when they were just learning how to, or hadn't yet. Perfect teaching tools and the best news? He got them for cheap.

Sitting Uryuu down on the tiny living room floor is simple enough, just like getting him to open up the old, worn books, some of the pages starting to tear away from the binding, is simple enough. Uryuu's like most small children. If there's a closed box he wants to see what's inside, same for a closed book; it's a lot like Pandora with her little box, if Soken stops to think about it, and momentarily he wonders how old Pandora was before realizing he's gotten side-tracked again and turns his mind back to the matter at hand.

The easy part is getting Uryuu to the books and the other easy part is teaching letters. The easy part's over pretty quickly.

That young mind just can't get over the barrier of turning letters into words, at least not at first. They spend hours poring over the books (_"But I thought the ostrich was the one with fins."_) and a great many headaches ensue; _It can not possible have been this difficult for Isono. _Taking down an army of Menos probably _would_ be easier than this; at least it wouldn't involve constant pricking one's fingers with the end of a pencil. Soken hadn't realized just how much the arthritis had gotten to him, even with medication, until he started writing out letters and realized it was barely legible. He can just see this as a road leading to his grandson having horrible handwriting; he just knows it.

It's three weeks of constant headaches, futility and the temptation to really just throw it all away and never pick up on it again, but then, after those weeks of constant struggling, Uryuu finally seems to get it.

"Now I think I need a nap," the old man mutters, clambering onto the couch while, still sitting on the floor, Uryuu holds a book open in his lap and mutters the words to himself. Soken can't remember the last time something tried his patience so sorely; Uryuu probably can't either. "God, wake me up at the end of the month."


	31. 31: Guess

**Title**: Guess**  
>AN**: Again, no comment.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>Okay, so he's proud of it. Uryuu suspects that most children are proud when the knowledge sinks in that they can read and write, at however inexpert a level. His grandfather doesn't give praise lightly even if he is encouraging, so if he's approving of the results Uryuu's sure it has to be <em>something <em>of an accomplishment.

Of course, Soken looked pretty exhausted and just as frustrated as Uryuu by the end of it. The moment he declared them done he made himself at home on the sofa and went to sleep, so he could have just been saying that so he could get some rest, but Uryuu likes to think that wasn't the case. Grandfather was just tired, that's all.

If in the car on the way home Uryuu is silent, it's because he's not sure what to say to his father. Ryuuken is much the same as usual, entirely silent and uncommunicative, barely acknowledging his son's presence apart from occasionally adjusting the rear view mirror so it falls on Uryuu. Uryuu smiles slightly and keeps quiet; it's easier to think about things like this than talk about them when in the car.

After supper's over and done with Uryuu's finally worked up the nerve to tell his father what he's learned.

"Guess what?" he says to the man sitting on the sofa, nose deep in a thick book.

"Yes?" comes Ryuuken's absent, disinterested response; Uryuu climbs onto the sofa beside him.

Uryuu babbles on excitedly, and it takes him a little while to realize Ryuuken's only half-listening and see the film of exhaustion glazing his eyes and putting them out of focus. Words die in his throat and the smile shrivels off his face. A bitter taste coats his mouth and tongue.

He pulls closer to his father and peeks at the words in the book, trying to follow along as best he can, not knowing why, but thankful when Ryuuken pays no mind.


	32. 32: Groceries

**Title**: Groceries**  
>AN**: Guys, I don't bite. Really I don't.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>It honestly was an accident; Ryuuken hadn't expected to see either of them there. Really, all he was looking for was a carton of milk for Uryuu and some more coffee. It would have been nice to get in and out of the grocery store in ten minutes time but apparently that won't be happening today.<p>

Ryuuken stiffens when he hears that voice. "Is that him? Yeah, I think that's him. Ryuuken? Ryuuken!"

As much as he wishes he could avoid this, Ryuuken knows he can't. He grits his teeth and turns around, already feeling that familiar headache starting to pound.

Down the aisle, Isshin grins and waves; just beyond him, Masaki is attending to their child, and she looks up and smiles before returning her attention to the boy.

Ryuuken makes a number of observations in this moment. One, is that Isshin hasn't changed at all in the six months since Ryuuken last saw him. Two, is that his son—Ichigo, Ryuuken thinks the boy's name must be—has hair much the same color as what somebody gets when they have black hair and try to bleach it. Given how young the boy is, Ryuuken can only assume that this is his natural hair color.

The observation he makes when his eyes fall on Masaki are easily the most jarring.

Masaki and Ryuuken are the same age. They bear each other a vague resemblance and in high school they were occasionally mistaken for siblings or more commonly for cousins. They still have that vague similarity in appearance but no one would think they were the same age just from looking at them. Masaki looks no older than twenty-five and Ryuuken's gray hairs make him look like a grandfather.

Reluctantly, Ryuuken takes a few steps forward, shifting the milk carton in his arms.

"So what have you been doing?" Isshin asks, more than a little awkward at the fact that Ryuuken won't even say 'hello'.

Determined to prove a point, Ryuuken's expression never shifts from tired, careful neutrality. "Much the same." Maybe a succinct answer will get the point across to Isshin.

Isshin rolls his eyes. "I can see that; why don't you tell me something I don't know?" Then again, maybe not. Isshin always has been a bit thick when it comes to things like that, at least if you ask Ryuuken. Of course, it could be that he just deliberately ignores the cues, but Ryuuken much prefers the explanation that Isshin is too socially dim to notice.

The former Shinigami never gives his old 'friend' a chance to respond; instead, Isshin's eyes shoot to Ryuuken's hairline and his face contorts in incredulity. "Ryuuken… You've got gray hair?"

At this point, Masaki bites her lip and shoots a sharp look at her husband. "Isshin!" she hisses, though Masaki looks more embarrassed than angry. Ryuuken can't really recall a time when Masaki, ever the easy-going soul, has been truly angry; irritated perhaps, but not genuinely angry. That's probably a good thing for Isshin.

"Thank you for pointing that out, Isshin," Ryuuken retorts sarcastically, beginning to wonder just how he can get out of this one.

Isshin doesn't seem too eager to let him go. "Where's your kid?" he asks bluntly, looking off to the side as though he expects to find a small child shadowing Ryuuken's footsteps.

Ryuuken shrugs disinterestedly, not looking at Isshin but beyond him. "Still with my father; I haven't gone to pick him up yet."

It's perhaps his dismissive tone or Masaki's tugging on his sleeve and tapping her watch that finally convinces Isshin that it's time to move on. "Oh. Well I'll see you later then." With an expression on his face that sort of mixes bemusement and hurt (either way, Ryuuken's trying to ignore it), Isshin goes on to the next aisle.

Masaki stays behind a few seconds longer, hands tight on the buggy. "He's just worried, you know," she remarks gently. "We both are."

"I am perfectly well, Masaki."

She grimaces. "I wouldn't be able to tell. You don't answer our calls, you don't come over. You've lost weight—_again_," Masaki points out sharply, and Ryuuken gets the point, "and you look like you've aged twenty years."

"Again, thank you for pointing that out, Masaki." Ryuuken's tone is noticeably less acerbic than the one he took with Isshin, and she can tell.

"At least call every once in a while so we know you're still alive," Masaki wheedles, brow furrowed.

"Oh… Oh, alright."

"Thank you."

Masaki wheels the buggy away, Ichigo asking his mother if they can get more cereal, and Ryuuken wonders if milk and coffee was really worth this.


	33. 33: Grandfather

**Title**: Grandfather**  
>AN**: Just a really, really short one.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>Other children have grandfathers who are policemen or doctors or postmen or bankers. Then again, other grandfathers aren't quite like Ishida Soken and their grandchildren aren't quite like Uryuu. Things are a bit different accordingly.<p>

Granted, it's only natural for a child to see their grandparents as a bit larger than life, even (or maybe especially) if said grandparent is the one who for all intents and purposes is raising them. Before they have all their illusions stripped away from them children smile up at their grandparents and see their whole world right there when they're not seeing it in their own parents.

Some grandfathers tell their grandchildren that there's no such thing as monsters.

Uryuu's does nothing of the kind.

Uryuu's grandfather gets rid of the monsters instead.

For that, Uryuu is glad. And he never feels safer than when he's with him.


	34. 34: Stories

**Title**: Stories  
><strong>AN**: She's back (_exclaims the narrator in a creepy, Poltergeist-esque sort of singsong tone)._ Anyway, hello. To those of you who thought I wasn't going to pick back up with this, do not fear; I have every intention of finishing this, even if I have given up _Bleach _as a manga.  
><strong>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>"And I tell you honestly that it is not a place man was ever meant to go."<p>

"Have you ever been there, Grandfather?"

"No, not me myself. I've heard about it through stories, just stories. Enough for me to know better than to try to go there." A rueful laugh follows. "I don't even know how one would go about getting there in the first place."

To say that Uryuu lives for moments like these is probably an exaggeration, but he still enjoys hearing the stories his grandfather has to tell. He enjoys hearing these stories even if the one subject he's most curious about is the one Soken will not touch—his family. If Uryuu asks about his mother, his grandmother, any cousins or aunts or uncles he might have, Soken, without fail and a far away expression on his face, says "Another time, Uryuu" and changes the subject. That "other time" never comes. Uryuu wonders about it, knows there's something he's not being told, but in the end is too afraid to ask, so he keeps his silence.

Instead, Uryuu hears about everything else in the long hours, when the sunlight's slanting unevenly through warped windows. Legends, myths, tales of long-ago and not-so-long-ago wars. Accounts of secret histories, traditions all but lost, each generation knowing less than the last. More about Hollows and of the others who hunt them, the Shinigami. (_"We count it bad luck to see one"_). Soken promises more on the Shinigami in the future but for now he holds back, and Uryuu can't help but wonder why.

Waiting through days either too hot or too cold to enjoy the outside, waiting out the long hours for his father to come take him home, there is no salve for the quiet except to listen. All the while, Uryuu wonders about the stories he isn't being told.


	35. 35: Creepy

**Title**: Creepy  
><strong>AN**: Not much to say here.  
><strong>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>The sudden presence of the man on the deserted sidewalk in front of them is enough to have Uryuu edging close to his grandfather and keep his eyes fixed on the cracked pavement at his feet. Granted, this is how he usually reacts when confronted with just about anyone, but today there is something else telling him not to look up.<p>

"Good morning, Ishida-san," the man greets his grandfather. "It's been a while, hasn't it?" He sounds genuinely pleased to see Soken, something that surprises Uryuu for some reason.

"Good morning," Soken replies warmly. "It certainly has been."

The two men continue exchanging pleasantries and eventually get down to talking. All the while, Uryuu stares down at the pavement, clutching his grandfather's hand and frowning worriedly as the sun beats down on his neck.

He can't explain it. There's nothing overtly threatening or menacing in the man's voice; quite the opposite really, only mild, polite friendliness to be found there. If he's Grandfather's friend then he can't be a bad man nor should he be a frightening one, and he's not; he's just… unsettling. There's a quality to his voice that makes the hair on the back of Uryuu's neck stand up, and his aura is unlike anything Uryuu has encountered before. Not like a normal human's, not like his father's or his grandfather's, not like a Hollow's and not like that of a Plus. Not like any of that, just different. He doesn't know how to describe it or him.

"You know, Ishida-san, I still have those pictures." Now the man sounds just a little hesitant and even if he doesn't look up Uryuu is startled, wondering just what he's talking about. "If you want them I can always have them sent to your home."

Soken shakes his head. "No, no. Just hold onto them for me, will you?" There's something tired and heavy as lead sinking in his voice like a shipwreck, and Uryuu leans closer to him out of reflex.

"Of course." There's a short pause in which Uryuu thinks that perhaps the man is finally going to pass them and leave, but then there comes an exclamation of surprised pleasure. "And who's this?" Uryuu restrains the urge to flinch, knowing the man is referring to him.

Disentangling his hand from that of his grandson's, Soken puts his arm around Uryuu's thin shoulders. "This is my grandson, Uryuu." Gathering his courage, Uryuu shoots a glance upwards and almost immediately averts his eyes again so that the man's gaze is met only with the top of a shiny black head, but not before catching a glimpse of him. He's a very tall man with an odd little smile. "He's very shy."

Uryuu winces and braces his shoulders when he feels a large hand on top of his head; Soken's grip on his shoulders tightens. "It's a pleasure to meet you." Remembering to be polite regardless of apprehension, Uryuu nods and gives a barely audible response in kind, forcing himself to make eye contact with the man.

"Well, it was nice to see you again, but we have to be going. Good day."

The child breathes a sigh of relief.

Once he's sure they're out of earshot from the man, Uryuu tugs on his grandfather's sleeve. "Grandfather, who was that man?" he asks inquisitively.

A strangely ironic smile twitches over the old man's face. "An old friend of mine." Soken looks down at him, that smile shifting to amusement with twinkling eyes. "Were you frightened?" Uryuu feels his face grow hot and a hoarse laugh follows. "It's alright." All traces of humor evaporates abruptly. "He wouldn't hurt you, but it's alright. I'd be more worried if you weren't a little wary of him."

As they keep walking, Uryuu comes to a word he thinks will fit.

Creepy. That's a perfect description for that man.


	36. 36: Curiosity

**Title**: Curiosity**  
>AN**: Again, not much here to report.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>Things were different back in the old days, and for once Soken wouldn't mind a return to the old days. This decision, that should have been so simple, so easy to make is instead horribly difficult, and in the old days he wouldn't have to be making it at all. Here, in this time and place, there's no escaping it, none at all.<p>

The generally accepted truth for training among the Quincy is that a child will begin their training no later than eight years of age; the exact age varies a bit among clans but eight is the most likely to be found. Training usually lasts ten to fifteen years depending on how quick to learn the student is; they will often start the business of hunting Hollows before their training is fully complete, and if their mentor dies before they're able to finish training, another member of the clan just picks up their training. However, if a child shows interest in being taught before reaching eight then the attitude is that by all means they should be taught. The sooner, the better.

Uryuu is, as is the case with most children, naturally curious. If anything, he's much like his father was at that age: bright and alert, precocious to a degree without a doubt detrimental to happiness. Uryuu is just like Ryuuken was; sees far more than he ought to and even if he doesn't understand most of it he knows enough to be very, _very _serious when he asks his grandfather about training.

'Fighting monsters'. That's how Uryuu puts it. He's terrified of Hollows but his dislike of the fact that Hollows menace both the living and the dead outweighs his fear, and those eyes are too serious for his still-round, still soft and undefined face as he asks.

_And what to say? _

Back in their heyday, when a child started training they were not given to their parents for instruction. It was believed that they would be too soft on their child and that the child wouldn't learn quickly enough or that when the time came and they were attacked by a Hollow they wouldn't be used enough to a serious fight to survive; training had to be brutal to be at all effective. The same went for older siblings and especially for grandparents, in the admittedly unusual event that a Quincy lived long enough to see their grandchildren to start with. Instead, a Quincy child ready to start training was usually given to a member of the clan whom they had not had much interaction with beforehand, or even a member of a different clan if one was nearby—different Quincy clans had different advanced techniques but the basics were the same and would do for early stages of training.

Well, the old days are gone. There are no other clans to give Uryuu to. There is no choice but to have either his father or his grandfather, and these days if and when a Quincy takes on a student they start to take down notes immediately, from the simplest of techniques to the most advanced, because the likelihood of there being one to pick up training after they are gone has become less and less likely.

If Soken is going to start training his grandson, it will have to be soon. He knows, doesn't have any proof but just knows that he almost certainly isn't going to live long enough to see Uryuu through to adulthood. If a Hollow doesn't kill him some sort of illness will. Uryuu is very young, almost too young, but it's the best he's been presented with.

Ryuuken isn't going to like it; he hasn't said a word but with his silence had made his stance on this matter very clear. Oh well. Anyone with any level of reiatsu at all is automatically a target for any Hollows in the area; with the naturally high reiatsu of a Quincy Uryuu might as well have a bull's eye painted on his back. Soken has absolutely no intention of allowing his grandson to go around without the ability to defend himself. Ryuuken understands this all too well; he'll be angry, but he'll just have to get over it.

And with that, Soken is startled to realize that he's already come to a decision.

He forces a smile onto his face as he addresses Uryuu. The child is standing in front of the chair he sits in, small hands on one of his grandfather's knees, those clear, unblinking blue eyes still so startlingly old. "How can I say no? We'll start tomorrow morning; get plenty of rest tonight."

Uryuu's face lights up and for once he looks like the child he is to his grandfather's eyes. "Thank you!"

That looks fades a bit when Soken adds a warning, uncharacteristically stern, "Don't tell your father." It's absolutely pitiable, he can't help but think, that Uryuu either immediately knows what he's talking about or just knows his father wouldn't be happy, because he nods seriously.

When Ryuuken has come and gone and taken Uryuu with him, Soken gets out pen, paper, sits down at the kitchen table, and starts to write.


	37. 37: New

**Title**: New**  
>AN**: Yes, yes, short, I know. There wasn't a whole lot of need to drag this out, though, and there's a good chance the next chapter will be much longer.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>It's an odd feeling, but not one Uryuu can say he dislikes. Grandfather tells him that's normal, just like being sore and achy and just a little cut and bruised. Well, if you call having the skin taken clean off three of the fingers on your right hand a bit cut up. Oh well; it doesn't really hurt all that much.<p>

With his young age this may be an immature presumption, but it feels like his life heretofore has been leading up to this.

On second thought, it sounds kind of grandiose even to Uryuu's young ears, but there's nothing else he can use. Nothing else seems at all appropriate.

It's something new. A new landscape, a new feeling that takes the place of helplessness and impotent fear when Uryuu realizes that even if he has a long way to go, even if he's only taken the first step and there are a thousand stairs in front of him, it's a start. He's not entirely helpless anymore.

Connected to the earth and the air as he never has been before, having his ears open to the world, Uryuu never wants to go back to the way he was before. He wouldn't return to helplessness now, not for happiness, not for security, all the riches in the world.

It will be hard, so, so hard, but worth it.


	38. 38: Lines

**Title**: Lines**  
>AN**: I was trying to make it come across as ambiguous as to who is right in this argument—I hope I managed to communicate that within the context of the story. Also, I've decided that in _Bleach _this is the family that always does things behind each other's backs despite knowing they won't like it. One more thing of note: Longest chapter yet!**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>"This has to stop."<p>

Up until now Ryuuken never gave it a terrible amount of thought but now, now he finds himself cursing his complacency as he sits at his father's kitchen table, glowering up at the old man who attends to a pot of rice on the stove, running a large wood-handled spoon through the kernels (_disgustingly maggot-like, but perhaps that's just where Ryuuken's morbid mind goes_) with deceptive idleness. Ryuuken can see the way the tension builds in Soken's slight shoulders like water straining against a dam.

If he is starting to feel the way someone does when caught at secrets, then so much the better.

Eyes keen and watchful, Ryuuken follows his father's progress through the tiny kitchen that's always seemed so dank and grimy despite being nothing less than spotlessly clean. Soken turns off the stove and, careful to keep strips of cloth between the ever-loosening skin of his hands and the cast-iron handles of the pot, lifts the pot off the stove.

Perhaps the pot was heavier than Soken had expected or perhaps he's tired after having started to train his grandson in the traditions and ways of the Quincy, but his left arm buckles and he nearly drops the pot to the floor before managing to get it on the countertop, betraying relief at not having spilled his supper all over his shoes. All this Ryuuken watches dispassionately, making not a single move to help him, his lips thinning all the while.

Soken's hands are not as steady as they once were, no longer earning the title of "quick" or "clever". The only way his hands are fast is through the brutality of desperation, through forcing alacrity into the fingers and feeling intense pain and tiredness to pay for it. Some might chalk it up to the arthritis but Ryuuken knows better; the only true explanation for this is age. His father is not a young man, past sixty. He's lived far longer than most Quincy have been able to claim, and more than once Ryuuken has wondered why a man so breathtakingly reckless and uncaring for his own life should live to see his silver hairs when there are others who never had that chance.

The injustice of it is something Ryuuken doesn't often touch on, but when he does, it's like a peak of bile in his throat.

A weary sigh, the memories of ages in that soft sound, makes a mockery of the air as Soken sits at the rickety little table and clasps his hands together. "What were you saying, Ryuuken?" he asks heavily.

"I want you to stop teaching Uryuu how to fight Hollows."

"Don't you think it's a little late for that now?" Having never been much of one for arguing, Soken's voice is still gentle, something that provokes Ryuuken to grit his teeth and snarl.

"I made my wishes clear—"

"You never said a thing—"

"_I made them clear, nonetheless." _

Ryuuken sucks in a deep breath and reins his temper back to a dull burn. Only cool heads will prevail in this sort of situation and he will _not _give his father the satisfaction of managing to make him lose his temper. "Please stop."

With anyone else the finality in Ryuuken's voice would have been enough for them to take a hint and not press the subject further, but Soken isn't done just yet, it seems. "Ryuuken, Uryuu is at risk the way he is now. He will attract the attention of Hollows no matter what is done and he should at least be able to defend himself in that event." His brow furrows heavily; the look of mingled pain and worry sends a spike of adrenaline shooting through Ryuuken's veins. "You know this, Ryuuken."

He does. Oh yes, he does. "Yes, I know this." If Soken takes any heart in what Ryuuken grudgingly admits, he must lose it with what the younger man follows up with. "What I also know is that in training him you are making him an even more appealing target for the appetite of a Hollow; why would a Hollow choose a human with a weak, crude presence over the focused, refined reiatsu of a trained Quincy? Why don't you answer me that, old man?" he snaps bitterly, glowering accusingly at his father with eyes like cold flame.

Never did Ryuuken want Uryuu sucked into this life. He knows he has a fool for a child, and whenever Uryuu _doesn't _behave foolishly it's only because he's behaving nervously or timidly instead (_He's not entirely sure what he did to make Uryuu so frightened of him, but the fear is there and Ryuuken has neither the means nor the will to remove it; if fear of him is what it takes to make Uryuu obey him then so be it_). He's completely intractable either way, obeying when he does only out of fear.

Still, Ryuuken never said he wanted him to die like that, alone, in the worst pain anyone can imagine. _I never said I wanted Uryuu to die like… _The thought is killed where it stands; it shrivels into nothingness. _I never said it._

After over a minute of the most profound and yet the loudest silence Ryuuken has ever heard, full of words and yet totally devoid of them, Soken answers. "I am teaching him to defend himself," he says, quietly and deliberately, like someone taking their first steps into the world of a new language. His eyes are careful, guarded, not calm.

The sheer hypocrisy of the words is what makes Ryuuken's eyes blaze and his words come out with far less control than what he would have liked. "You're not teaching Uryuu to defend himself. You're training him in the fine art of getting himself killed in spectacularly gruesome ways!" He doesn't realize that he's shouting until his throat starts to ache and his voice cracks. Then comes the confusion. _Shouting? Why am I shouting?_

"We all die eventually, Ryuuken—"

_Yes, and that was always what was wrong with you, that you treated death like something to be welcomed. Death is neither just nor fair, no matter what you think, and whatever insurance I can claim against early death, whatever method I can find to fight for life, I will take it._

"—You know this as well as I do, and you must know that the progress of life and death is a perfectly natural one. At least Uryuu—" At this, Soken stops, his gaze growing intense and piercing in a way Ryuuken had forgotten they could. "Ryuuken, where is Uryuu?" he asks tensely. "Is he in the car?"

Frowning perplexedly, Ryuuken shakes his head. "No, he's at home, asleep. I fail to see why that matters."

All traces of good humor, what little were left, abruptly evaporate from Soken's face. "You left him alone at night. _Are you insane_?"

Ryuuken scoffs indignantly. "You did the same to me throughout my childhood. If anyone in this family is insane it's—"

This would be the cue for Ishida Soken to explode.

"Your mother was there, and by the time she wasn't you were old enough to take care of yourself and well-versed in the offensive use of a frying pan!" the old man shouts, now fully irate. He springs from his chair and starts to shoo Ryuuken out of the house. "Up, get up and go home! What if Uryuu were to have a nightmare as he so often does, woke up and went looking for you and you weren't there? Or what if, heaven forbid, someone were to break into your house and found Uryuu and you weren't there? I won't have it. Now out!"

This would be the cue for Ishida Ryuuken to make a strategic withdrawal (_"retreat" is too messy and "running away" too cowardly)_. It's been so long since the last time Soken indulged in a display of temper that Ryuuken forgot he had a temper at all.

Once again alone, Soken starts to dole congealed rice into a bowl, so tired and so slow that his hands don't even shake at all.

He sits down at the table.

The rice is stone cold and all goes to ash in his mouth. He eats it anyway.


	39. 39: Mad

**Title**: Mad**  
>AN**: Here we go.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>"Father, are you mad at me?" It takes all of Uryuu's courage to ask that question and it takes all of his nerves not to run away immediately after letting the words out of his mind and into the air where they can be heard.<p>

He's had a nightmare again and Ryuuken has accepted him crawling into his bed without comment; at present, his father is reading, staring down the pages with a single-minded concentration so intense as to be vaguely frightening. Uryuu isn't sure if it's something for work or if Ryuuken's just reading for pleasure—reading being one of his few hobbies that isn't guaranteed to be work-related—but there's nothing casual about the way he's reading, regardless.

Uryuu has to ask. Ryuuken has lately been behaving differently around him. The differences aren't immediately apparent, especially not to someone who doesn't know Ryuuken well, but Uryuu can see it clear as day like a photograph in front of him. A little colder, a little more distant, a little more like he's pointedly ignoring him when the two are in the same room or in the car together.

If Ryuuken's angry, Uryuu has a good idea when it started and something of an inkling as to why. He started behaving like this the day he found out that Soken was training him to be a proper Quincy.

Uryuu doesn't want his father to be mad at him. Really he doesn't; he can't remember the last time he actually _wanted _to make him angry. But it means too much to him, the training, the feel of energy humming in the ears and the thought of newfound strength to just give it up.

For a moment, Ryuuken gives no indication that he heard the question at all and Uryuu isn't willing to ask again. Then, Ryuuken puts down his book and locks eyes with Uryuu, and Uryuu can't look away any more than he can find a way to undo the sudden knot in his throat, tugging more closed with every second and making it all but impossible to breathe.

His expression is veiled, his eyes betraying nothing. "Don't ask foolish questions, Uryuu," Ryuuken answers finally, his voice perfectly even. The book is plucked up and Ryuuken picks up where he left off, as though this never happened. "It's unseemly," he absently remarks as an afterthought.

_What? _Uryuu has no idea what he meant by that—he's not sure he wants to. If anything, he has the distinct impression that Ryuuken was avoiding the subject. Uryuu's not sure he wants to know what that's about either.

But there's no avoiding the fact that his father is angry at someone, and after his father's gone to sleep, Uryuu just sits up and stares at him. Ryuuken's face always relaxes in slumber and when Uryuu looks at his father's face, slackened, the sharp edges taken out, he can imagine a different man. Maybe kinder, maybe gentler or maybe not; just different. Uryuu smiles a little bit as he looks at him and nestles beside him for warmth, wrapping his fingers around his father's much longer ones.

But only when he's asleep. In wakefulness there is only proud indifference, and Uryuu starts to wonder if he ever had a chance at all.


	40. 40: Soup

**Title**: Soup**  
>AN**: Nothing to report. I can only hope you'll enjoy it.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>There's a chilly pall hanging over everything now to go, quite fittingly Soken thinks, with the changing leaves and the new frost always on the dead grass in the mornings and the unwillingness of his fingers to move with the deftness they once possessed. <em>Where does youth go? Down the drain, out the window or flying from the world altogether? <em>Wherever it goes it has certainly fled from him, and the radiator on in the corner of the kitchen isn't enough to bring warmth or youth back to him.

Uryuu has been hovering at his right hand side in the kitchen for the past hour, trying again and again to get a peek of what's in the soup pot and being thwarted every time. The smell of fish, not nearly as unpleasant as what you'd find as a fish market has engulfed the kitchen, warm and welcome and anyone can tell the child next to him is getting hungrier by the minute.

"It's almost ready, Uryuu. Just be patient."

Soken has a not-so-sneaking suspicion that the only reason Ryuuken still allows Uryuu to come here at all, given his (rather loud) reaction to Soken starting to train Uryuu is because with his own paranoia against public establishments there's nowhere else to bring Uryuu. Soken also has a not-so-sneaking suspicion that when Uryuu starts school he's going to be seeing a lot less of his grandson, and not because Uryuu will have homework to do after school. Everything has an air of coming to an end now.

The familiar wood-handled spoon runs a smooth, thick swath through the soup, the chunks of mackerel coming up occasionally but more or less hiding beneath the surface of the murky water. _Give it just a few more minutes. _If Soken recalls, Ryuuken never liked this particular soup very much as a child, and even if he never gave any outward indication of his dislike Soken knows he only ate it because he was hungry and knew there was nothing else to be had. Hopefully Uryuu will like it better than his father did; he certainly seems hungry enough to wolf it down regardless.

"Have you ever had fish, Uryuu?"

Frowning bemusedly, the child shakes his head and Soken nods, unsurprised. "I didn't think so. Your father doesn't eat a great deal of meat; he doesn't see any need to keep it in the house, I suppose. However, you are growing, and you need a fair amount of meat in your diet; I hope your father will see that." _Because picking a fight with Ryuuken over Uryuu's diet will solve nothing and likely make things worse. _The old man manages a small, twitching smile for his grandson. "And I hope you will like it as well."

Now even more curious than before, Uryuu reaches out towards the pot, eyes wide. Soken manages to catch his hand and guide it away before he can burn his hand on the metal, but only just.

Soken sighs heavily, stirring the soup to keep it from burning, with a child at his side, never speaking but always questioning anyways, when he realizes that this is the closest they've come to behaving like a normal family in weeks.


	41. 41: Background

**Title**: Background**  
>AN**: No manga spoilers in the reviews, please? Also, Oura is a famous Catholic church in Nagasaki.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>Given that the last of Grandfather's friends that Uryuu met was an insanely creepy man even if he was attempting to give the impression of being a friendly person, Uryuu can't help but be relieved that Grandfather does have some normal friends. This new man who's popped up out of the snow, stamping his feet out on the stoop might be quite a bit louder and more… <em>erm<em>_… _energetic than what Uryuu's used to, but at least he doesn't have this weird, unidentifiable aura about him. This one at least seems to be a normal human being.

At first, when Soken opens up the door a glaze of worry has affixed itself to his skin. Uryuu doesn't know why until he realizes that he hadn't been expecting anyone that day and he thought it had been Ryuuken at the door; given that Ryuuken never takes time off from work the prospect of him showing up right now, just before lunch time, isn't one that invites good thoughts.

Instead of seeing Ryuuken though, when Soken opens the door Uryuu peeks from behind him and sees an old man in a heavy coat and fedora on the stoop. "I'm back!" The old man, with unkempt iron gray hair and a moustache to rival Soken's own, beams when he sees him and holds out a hand to shake.

Soken doesn't immediately recognize him and Uryuu back-steps about half a dozen paces, eyes fixed nervously on the stranger. Then, at about the moment Soken squints and recognition dawns on his face, Uryuu watches his grandfather's demeanor change into something more unperturbed and he relaxes. "Atsuo?" He sounds just as surprised as he did when he met that man in the street last summer. "That is you, isn't it?"

Realizing that he isn't going to get Soken to shake his hand, Atsuo sticks it back in his pocket and grins hugely. "Yes, it's me. It's very cold out here, Soken. Would you mind letting me in?"

Smoothing down his flannel vest self-consciously Soken nods and steps aside. "Of course; come inside. I've got some tea on the stove."

Radiating relief, Atsuo does just that, peeling off his thick boots before coming in out of the biting December cold and tossing his coat and hat onto the coat rack just inside. The brown fedora doesn't quite make it to one of the pegs and flutters gently to the floor like a descending wren. Soken picks the hat off the floor and hands it to Uryuu before following Atsuo into the kitchen, an odd look on his face.

Uryuu frowns at the floppy fedora, running his fingers over the soft felt probingly. Then, admittedly with reluctance, he sets the fedora on the arm of the beat-up couch and follows his grandfather and the new man into the kitchen.

-0-0-0-

Fifteen minutes later, Uryuu is sipping on his grandfather's tea out of a plastic cup and not paying the greatest amount of attention to what Soken and Atsuo have to say. Soken has gotten a dusty folding metal chair out of the closet and sat Uryuu down on it.

For better or worse, Uryuu starts to become more interested in the conversation between his grandfather and his friend at about the time Atsuo's words and demeanor become quite excitable and Soken for some reason feels the need to clamp his hands down over Uryuu's ears. Soken glares at the man sitting opposite him but Atsuo doesn't seem to notice. After that, Uryuu really can't help but listen.

"I still can't believe you went back to Nagasaki." Soken's voice is oddly low at this, possessed of some sort of catch that Uryuu can't for the life of him identify.

"I still can't believe you _won't_ go back," Atsuo retorts, tapping the side of his glass, "not even to visit. They've rebuilt, Soken, and the winters are warmer than here, I should add." He shoots a dirty look out the window at the thin layer of wet, slushy snow. This isn't the sort of snow children can play in; it's the snow people only get sick in.

Uryuu looks at his grandfather, brows drawn up. Yet another thing he's never heard before and probably won't hear again, and just as bewildering as all these hints he gets into his family's past. Since there's no way of knowing when he'll get another hint like this again and it's not like Uryuu can ever get his father or his grandfather to talk about their family anyway, Uryuu is all ears at this point.

Choosing to stare into his glass instead of meeting anyone's eyes, Soken shrugs. "I have neither the desire nor the funds to do such a thing." His voice is carefully mild and though Atsuo might not Uryuu recognizes that tone as being the one Soken adopts when evading uncomfortable questions.

Atsuo snorts. "I suppose. But _he_—" Atsuo points to Uryuu, who looks up, surprised; this is the first time the man has acknowledged his presence "—ought to see it, don't you think? To see where his family comes from, if nothing else."

"Perhaps." But Soken only says so in an attempt to get Atsuo off the topic of Nagasaki, and this time both Uryuu and Atsuo can tell.

With his curiosity peaked in a new way, Uryuu takes a gulp of tea and blinks. He's never left Tokyo before; while others may tell him that given that he's five this doesn't count for much, five years seems like a very long time to him, a long time to just be in one place. Uryuu has looked at maps before; he knows where Nagasaki is, sort of. On the last of the main islands before you hit the ocean and then the Ryukyu Islands, Nagasaki seems like the ends of the earth.

"So…" The child tips his head up and blushes when he realizes Atsuo is looking at him, a small smile affixed to his face. "This is your grandson?"

Soken puts a hand on Uryuu's shoulders. "Yes, this is Uryuu."

At mention of Uryuu's name, Atsuo's eyebrows shoot up for some reason, a look of surprise coming over his face, but he doesn't comment on it. Instead, he simply nods. "I thought so. No offense, Soken, but you're getting on in years to have a child so young. I've got five just like him, though mind you—" Atsuo laughs "—they talk."

Uryuu frowns. "I can talk," he retorts defensively.

Atsuo lets out another laugh. "So you can." Wind batters on the window and he shudders. Once his attention is drawn back to the table, he nods to the plastic glass of tea Uryuu's holding. "Are you sure it's alright to be letting him drink that?"

"I don't see why not," Soken answers calmly. "Uryuu likes it and it has never had any adverse effect on him."

"If you say so." Atsuo smiles and launches right back into Nagasaki. "Now you see, I think he'd like it there. I could round up my offspring and their offspring; we could get together with a few more old friends."

Soken smiles sadly. "I'd really rather not, Atsuo. I promised myself a long time ago that I would never go back to Nagasaki, not after what happened. Besides, does it even look the same at all? Would I recognize that I was standing in my old neighborhood if I was standing there?"

At this, Atsuo has to grimace and shake his head. "No, it doesn't look the same, and you'd probably get lost. The city looks very different. Lot more churches nowadays; Oura's still standing, you know. Which brings me to another question." His eyes narrow. "I remember you telling me once that your family didn't always live in Nagasaki. I've always wondered, and if you don't mind me asking: where did they come from before there?"

Shaking his glass a little, Soken must be aware that he has both his old friend and his grandson staring intently at him, waiting with varying degrees of raptness for his answer. "From the continental mainland, in 1801," he answers with startling lightness.

"Huh." Atsuo drains his glass before continuing, a curious frown fastened to his face. "So your family was Chinese?"

"No, German." Uryuu gets the feeling that Soken is being as succinct as possible to avoid opening the door for potentially awkward questions, the nature of which he isn't quite sure of yet.

"German," Atsuo repeats, taken aback. Curiosity burns in his dark eyes. "Well I guess that explains the…" he mutters, voice trailing off. "Why did you move here?" As soon as curiosity appears it is replaced by conspiracy. "Let me guess. Some sort of political persecution?"

A hand waves in the air wearily. "Something like that. Nagasaki is a port city. There was always a great deal of foreigners, coming and going. It was somewhere we could blend in, and up until '45 we never left."

Perhaps finally sensing that this is too sensitive a topic for discussion, Atsuo nods, suddenly tentative, and changes the subject.

As talk turns to the economy, who's shooting at who and the degeneracy of modern music, Uryuu inevitably loses interest, emptying his glass and just sitting there, hearing but not really listening to the elderly men's voices and lulled into a foggy, half-asleep state by the rhythmic, soothing hum of the radiator. He is absorbed by his own thoughts.

Uryuu is sure that they're being Quincy has something to do with why his family moved to Japan so many years ago. Though he's sure he won't get an answer if he asks, he has to wonder why.


	42. 42: Accustomed

**Title**: Accustomed**  
>AN**: Nothing to report.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>Ryuuken has gotten to the point that he's counting down the days to when Uryuu will start school. Supplies has been bought and appropriate clothes found, and as Ryuuken puts down his book and looks at the child who, face contorted and shadowed by the terrible weight of bad dreams, he knows that this has to be the last time.<p>

_The world is not kind, not even to children. If not now, then when?_

He watches in silence as Uryuu crawls into bed beside him, huddling under the thick sheets and pressing close against his father's side. While this isn't what anyone would call a nightly occurrence, it's become something of a tradition between them and Uryuu doesn't ask permission anymore, knowing he doesn't need it. Ryuuken has always accepted his presence without comment; Uryuu knows that. Up until now when nightmares come to call this has been as safe a haven as Uryuu has known.

"You can't keep coming here every time you have a nightmare."

No longer.

Uryuu's eyes snap upwards at that. For a moment he looks bewildered, then deeply hurt, something screaming in the back of his eyes. Then, his face goes very red and he ducks his chin, studying the thread texture of the sheets with seeming fascination.

The child's albeit predictable reaction leave Ryuuken restraining a weary sigh. "Look at me." When after a long moment Uryuu does lift his head again, though his eyes are on his father's face he isn't really _looking _at him, plainly wanting nothing more than to be able to lower his head again. "This is the last time," Ryuuken says quietly. "You must be able to handle nightmares on your own." When Uryuu opens his mouth, he cuts him off. "I know that these things are frightening. But as frightening as they are, they are only memories. Memories can not harm you." Even before the words leave his mouth, Ryuuken knows them to be a lie.

And Uryuu doesn't understand. His small mouth twitches the way it would if he were about to cry, and even if there are no tears, his state of mind is as obvious as though he had indulged in an explosive display of emotion. He is as transparent as glass.

"This is the last time," Ryuuken repeats, still with that soft, even voice. He goes back to reading and Uryuu is as silent as a mouse.

An hour later, Ryuuken puts away his book and looks over to his left to find that Uryuu has fallen asleep. A curtain of fine black hair falls against skin, half-shrouding his face and he would look something close to dead if not for the faint rise and fall of his chest.

It's only when Ryuuken reaches over to pull Uryuu's glasses down off the bridge of his nose and put them on the stand by his own, as he has done so many times in the past, that he realizes that he's as accustomed to this as Uryuu.


	43. 43: School

**Title**: School**  
>AN**: I'm starting college on Monday so I think I'm actually writing from experience for once.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>Uryuu doesn't know if the first day of school is supposed to feel like being pushed off a pier into the ocean without any sort of life jacket, but that's what it's like for him.<p>

_There's so many people. _The halls are full to bursting of rushing children and teachers shifting through the doors. Walls and windows gleaming with light, the din is nearly overwhelming. It's too hot, there's cacophony all around and the combination of smells in the cafeteria is almost enough to have his stomach to the point of heaving.

The correct term, though Uryuu doesn't know it, would be something along the lines of "sensory overload".

Probably the only thing Uryuu really likes about school are the lessons themselves. It's only the first day so it's not like he's done much of anything but his teacher's given him a workbook that looks very appealing. Uryuu thinks he knows what he's going to be doing in the afternoons on the days when his grandfather isn't going to be able to train him, even beyond doing homework. What he _doesn't _know is that if he ever disclosed such a thing to the people around him they'd probably look at him like he had grown a second head. Sometimes, ignorance really is bliss.

He doesn't think he's ever been in the presence of so many people in his life. He doesn't think he's ever been exposed to so much noise in his life. Uryuu has been isolated from other children for as long as he can remember, though to be truthful he hasn't thought much about it. Soken kept him from other children, fearing that he might start talking about ghosts and monsters in front of the others and having awkward questions asked. Ryuuken probably hasn't given it a second thought at all.

Uryuu has no idea what to say to anyone, so he keeps his mouth shut and doesn't draw attention to himself. No one notices him and he can't help but be relieved.

As soon as he sees his grandfather again, Soken asks him about school.

"_So, how was your first day at school?" The old man smiles warmly and his attempt to pat his grandson's back is obstructed by the new presence of a backpack._

_For the longest time, Uryuu doesn't answer. He looks down at the dusty road and bites his lip. Then, he looks up and manages a startlingly even look, something that startles his grandfather and puts a cold feeling in his blood._

"_Loud," Uryuu answers simply, and for one who has been raised in silence, it is enough._


	44. 44: Unsolved

**Title**: Unsolved**  
>AN**: Nothing to say here.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>It's a week after Uryuu starts school that Ryuuken finally decides to say what he is convinced he has to.<p>

Given how late he gets in on any given night, Ryuuken can't be sure, but his guess is that Uryuu isn't coming straight home from school. Oh certainly, Uryuu is getting his homework done and doing it all right; Ryuuken checks. Certainly Uryuu is home by the time his father is home; that's hardly a difficult thing to accomplish. But what Ryuuken's noticing that makes him think that Uryuu isn't coming home is how tired he is.

_It's seven at night when Ryuuken gets home—actually a bit earlier than usual—and he is met with silence as the key slides out of the lock and he closes the front door behind him._

_Curiosity peaking in him, he cracks open the door of Uryuu's room to find the boy asleep on his bed. Apart from the absence of shoes and glasses Uryuu is still fully dressed; he hasn't bothered to pull the sheets back and clamber under them despite his palpable discomfort at how cold the house is._

_Ryuuken leans in the doorway a long moment, looking at him with his eyes narrowed and a face that would be unreadable if anyone was there to watch him. A small hand clenches the edge of the pillow and the pale, washed-out blue sheets aren't even slightly rumpled despite being laid on top of. The blinds haven't been shut; in the ruddy gold shades of sunset filtering through Uryuu looks more wan than ever._

_The door goes shut without a sound._

Even allowing for the fact that Uryuu is still rather sickly (not as bad as it used to be but still enough to draw attention to his pallor and slightly frail figure) and that he is a young child, he should not be tiring out as quickly or as easily as he is. He knows his son's sleeping patterns; Uryuu sleeps neither well nor effortlessly. Just going to school should not have him so exhausted that he's fast asleep by the time Ryuuken gets home.

However, if Uryuu is still going to Soken for training and going after school, that would definitely leave him tired enough to be sleeping most nights when Ryuuken comes home from the hospital. Quincy training is frankly exhausting even when conducted by someone so inclined to go easy on his students as Soken.

"Listen, I don't want you going to your grandfather's house anymore, do you understand?"

The way Uryuu's back stiffens when Ryuuken gives him his marching orders is all the confirmation of guilt that Ryuuken needs.

At first, Uryuu makes no response. A flash of alarm makes his eyes seem far too wide and far too bright; there's no sheen of tears as Ryuuken thought there might be, regardless. Alarm shifts to grief, then to what Ryuuken knows will be a problem in the future: the quiet beginnings of defiance.

"Why?" His voice is small and shakes just a little, belying the mutinous gleam in his eyes.

Ryuuken shakes his head irritably. "Because your grandfather is going to get you killed some day," he remarks bluntly. The truth is the only answer he can think of. Soken is an old man who doesn't move nearly as quickly as he used to; given his habits and his continued insistence on hunting Hollows, Ryuuken can only think of one way he's going to die. Anyone with sense can see that if he continues to hang around him Uryuu will die the same way. Personally, Ryuuken has no desire to have the police on his doorstep again conveying regrets and telling him to follow them.

(All the while there's the reality of the fact that Uryuu is a target no matter what he does and that maybe with Quincy powers he at least has a chance of surviving to see adulthood. Ryuuken still hasn't figured out how to reconcile this with the fact that Uryuu is just the sort to step into harm's way if he has the opportunity and the ability to. He's not even trying, really.)

"Yes, sir." Uryuu capitulates reluctantly and he half-glares down at the white-tiled kitchen floor in a manner strongly resembling petulance. His head is bowed and his shoulders hunched resentfully, yet he seems strangely defeated at the same time. All the while there's the hint that he wants to say more but doesn't, as he walks away to shut himself up in his room.

Ryuuken has the feeling that this hasn't solved anything.


	45. 45: Right

**Title**: Right**  
>AN**: I don't have anything to say here, either.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>Uryuu doesn't like to lie, both because he's not particularly good at it and just a personal feeling that it's dirty. If the world was different and his circumstances were different Uryuu doesn't think he would bother with it at all. As they are, he has lied. This is the first time and as much as he doesn't like it he's pretty sure it's not going to be the last.<p>

Ryuuken gets home from work at times that are occasionally quite ridiculous. There have been a number of times when Uryuu falls asleep before his father gets home and is alone again the next morning; actually that tends to be the rule, rather than the exception. He likely won't even know that Uryuu is gone if he's careful about it.

What bothers him is that Uryuu doesn't know how Ryuuken found out that he was still going to his grandfather's house. Of course, Uryuu also doesn't know how to counter that, and if he's found out again he'll just weather it out.

The sun is shining brightly and Uryuu winces, holding a hand up against his eyes and squinting. It's very hot today; hopefully Grandfather won't be exhausted from the heat again and they'll be able to train. Though he's only taken this route maybe a dozen times Uryuu is well-versed in which dirt paths to follow and which old, cracked-asphalt back roads to traverse; he knows the way like the back of his hand.

_Why? _Uryuu isn't always given to the deepest contemplation. Now though, he's starting to think. He's starting to wonder why he does this, day after day, why he risks antagonizing his father when all he really wants is for the man to approve of him, to maybe care about him, even if it's only a tiny little bit.

_I want Father to like me, I really do. This isn't going to solve anything, so why do it?_

_Why? _He stops dead in his tracks, trying not to sneeze at the dust blowing in the hot, humid wind—there's been thunder and lightning and angry clouds for days now but no rain, none at all. Small hands clench into fists and his backpack cuts red lines into his shoulders even though it's not all that heavy.

_Why? _The plain truth of the matter is that Uryuu doesn't know why. He just knows that _this, _that being here now and doing what he is, is right. His convictions are strangely stern and unyielding; convinced that they are right, he continues to believe that they are right no matter what happens to him.

(There are things Uryuu is too young to understand. He's too young to understand that sometimes the strength of his convictions are simply not enough. He's too young to understand that sometimes, the knowledge that something is "right" isn't enough. He'll learn, even if it will be a hard lesson. He will learn.)

It's right even if it costs him some honesty. It's right even if it costs him some happiness.

But he still worries, flinching at thunder overhead and shrinking away from the shadows cast by trees.


	46. 46: Doubt

**Title**: Doubt**  
>AN**: Once again, I have nothing to say.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>For himself, Ryuuken would appreciate it if his son would <em>not <em>mistake him for some sort of fool. It's demeaning and Ryuuken's ability to see the obvious has never been anything but up to snuff anyway. Not for a moment is Ryuuken naïve enough to take Uryuu at his word when he agreed to quit going to his grandfather's house for training.

Well, actually…

Ryuuken isn't in the habit of taking his work home with him, but sometimes, as with now, it is simply unavoidable. It's probably past seven and he hasn't eaten anything since before dawn, but oddly, Ryuuken isn't hungry at all; he never is. Sitting at the desk in the somewhat cramped room he claimed as an office when he was first living here, walking space rather limited thanks to the desk and the bookcases piled high with books all around, he sighs, putting the pen down and rubbing his forehead. Paperwork is unattractive even at the best of times, enough so that even turning his thoughts to what is growing into a situation with Uryuu is preferable.

Admittedly, for the first day or so Ryuuken manages to believe that maybe this will be the end of it and he won't have to worry about Uryuu learning how to hunt Hollows anymore. The next day though, when he comes home just before dark and finds Uryuu to be asleep again, those petty illusions he cherished shatter on the floor. No, Uryuu is not going to stop and Ryuuken should have known that from the start.

Now, he finds himself stalling for time, settling for inaction because he doesn't know what else to do. Ryuuken can't watch Uryuu every hour of the day or track his movements; he can't physically stop his son from going to his grandfather any more than he can stop rain from falling when there's a storm.

There's a treacherous little voice in Ryuuken's head that tells him that Soken has a point, and no matter how much he tries to extinguish it the voice remains; he's starting to suspect that it's the manifestation of doubt. It's an irritant, but there you have it and Ryuuken can't get rid of it. For the most part he manages to ignore it, but now the chorus is incessant and impossible to ignore.

_He's in harm's way no matter what circumstances he finds himself and you're not always going to ward off danger. What is Uryuu if he is helpless?_

Swallowing as he picks up the pen again and starts to scratch out characters on the form paper, Ryuuken's eyes narrow. If Uryuu slips up, either by returning to him with cuts and bruises or by not getting home until after his father, Ryuuken _will _draw attention to it and he will _not _be pleased (_If you're going to practice deception at least do so with some measure of finesse)._

One paper is filled out and done with; it is placed aside to make way for another.

In the position that he finds himself, dissociating himself from all worlds but the one of flesh and blood and bone, all Ryuuken can think to do is ignore it.

_(And when the voice that he is now sure to be doubt points out that ignoring a problem doesn't make it go away, Ryuuken ignores it too.)_


	47. 47: Sock

**Title**: Sock**  
>AN**: I officially have over one hundred reviews. While it's not a complete and total break from the angst, have this as a gift.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>"What is this?"<p>

Sunday is supposed to be a day of rest but given that he would much rather be working at any given time Ryuuken isn't always on the best of terms with Sunday. As it is, Uryuu sees no more of him on Sundays than on any other day since Ryuuken has the tendency to shut himself up in his office the whole day, not even coming out to eat. The door might not be locked but Ryuuken is rarely disturbed, all the same.

This happens to be one of those rare times.

Uryuu is standing at the left hand side of the desk (Ryuuken didn't notice him until he spoke), looking up at his father in a way that as of late has become unusual for him: directly as opposed to staring at the ground, with an inquisitive gleam in his eyes. He is clutching something gray and floppy to his chest. At first, Ryuuken doesn't recognize what Uryuu's holding and he squints, but when he does recognize it his heart jolts and his gaze shifts to a glare.

"Where did you get that?" Ryuuken demands brusquely, not quite the tones of anger but something that can pass for it in a pinch.

No doubt realizing that he's made a mistake, Uryuu's eyes dart to the carpet, the afternoon sunlight filtering through the window catching on his glasses and making them shine brightly. "In a drawer in your room," he mumbles.

Ryuuken already knew that. Specifically he knows exactly which drawer Uryuu found it in: the bottom drawer on the left hand side, all the way to the back. "Yes, and why exactly were you going through my drawers?" he asks acerbically, more irritated than angry. Admittedly, the drawer Uryuu seems to have been going through isn't exactly Ryuuken's; the point still stands.

"I was curious," Uryuu half-mutters, a faint pink tinge in his cheeks.

"Yes, I can imagine." Ryuuken holds out a hand for the object and upon receiving it turns it over, face up, in his hands. He stares at it in silence, feeling for a moment something so akin to somberness that his face goes slack. The coarse, worn fabric is warm in his hands thanks to Uryuu having held it against his chest.

Uryuu puts his hands on his father's knee, peeking up at the object. "What is it?" he asks again.

His father narrows his eyes. "If you really want to know, it's a stuffed animal called a sock monkey. You can guess what it's made of."

In particular, this is a very _old_ sock monkey, probably a good forty years old at least. It's not terribly well-made; the stitches are a bit loose even when taking its age into account and Ryuuken can only assume that the one who made it wasn't the best hand at a needle in the world. The black button eyes are scratched and dull and the fabric of the main body is starting to wear a bit thin in places.

After a moment Ryuuken realizes that Uryuu is staring at him expectantly and he stiffens, unceremoniously shoving the stuffed animal back into his son's arms. "Here, take it," Ryuuken mutters. "I don't know what I'd do with the thing anyway."

"Thank you!" Uryuu's face lights up and Ryuuken blinks, surprised despite himself. He'd forgotten Uryuu was capable of such a bright, unaffected, untroubled smile. Seeing his son's smile as it can be, for once completely devoid of melancholy, puts him off his guard for just a moment. Of course, it's over as soon as it starts because Uryuu retreats quickly, remembering that this is pretty much one of the two "off-limits" zones of the house (apart from Ryuuken's bedroom), but Ryuuken frowns for a moment before going back to work.

It's for the best that Uryuu take the sad, old, slightly bedraggled sock monkey off his hands. All Ryuuken could have done was throw it out and for once, it's a memory he can't quite stand to be rid of.


	48. 48: Sunburn

**Title**: Sunburn**  
>AN**: I don't remember how old I was when I had my first sunburn (given that I stay out of the sun most of the time, I haven't had all that many), but I've never really liked them at all.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>Uryuu whimpers as his father gently pokes his hot, reddened arm, and Ryuuken sighs tiredly as he looks him over. "How long were you outside?" he asks quietly.<p>

For himself, Uryuu is no doubt counting this as an intensely unpleasant experience if the expression of pain and discomfort on his face (just as reddened as his arms and legs) is anything to go on. He shrugs helplessly and nods to the clock hanging on the wall. "It was three when I went out."

Kneeling on the ground in front of his son, Ryuuken cranes his neck around to check the time. Three thirty in the afternoon. Upon turning his gaze back to Uryuu and looking him up and down again, he blinks incredulously. _This bad of a sunburn in thirty minutes? Oh well, I suppose it could be worse. At least it was only his face and limbs._

It's only when Uryuu grimaces and hangs his head that Ryuuken draws his attention back to the present. "I'm sorry," Uryuu mumbles. Past experience leaves him itching to escape his father's scrutiny.

"It's alright." Though Ryuuken has to force himself to say it the message is genuine. "I should not have let you go outside without sunscreen," he admits reluctantly, "not with the way the weather's been lately." For the past two weeks or so the weather has been bright, hot and dry, prime season for sunbathing and sunburns. Given how pale and translucent Uryuu's skin is, Ryuuken should have seen this coming. And, _of course, _after getting out the thermometer and checking he's discovered that Uryuu is running a low fever thanks to the sunburn.

Uryuu nods silently, keeping his eyes fixed firmly on the carpet. If he doesn't know what sunscreen is he doesn't ask.

For once, Ryuuken doesn't press the issue of eye contact. He gets to his feet and motions for Uryuu to follow him. "Come on, cold bath. You'll feel better."

Once he's to where Uryuu can't see his face, Ryuuken grimaces. _I don't want to think about what it's going to be like when his skin starts peeling._


	49. 49: Freckles

**Title**: Freckles**  
>AN**: Couldn't resist. It can't all be angst, you know, at least not yet; it's a little early in the game for that.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>Uryuu frowns as he looks at his face in the bathroom mirror, poking at his skin. Normally, he wouldn't be doing this. True, he's more than a little self-conscious but that's only to the extent of not wanting to get dirty; he's quite gung-ho about cleanliness.<p>

The sunburn Uryuu got over a week ago has come and gone, along with all the pain and most of the discomfort; his skin's still just a touch tender, but nothing that can't be handled. Along with that, Uryuu's skin has finally stopped peeling. That was a nightmare, both for Uryuu and his father, the latter having to stop him from pulling the dead skin away at all hours of the day and night and scolding him soundly when he catches him doing it behind his back. All this was bad, but the worst was undoubtedly the way his classmates reacted; Uryuu as actually noticed by certain members of his class for once, but only to be teased incessantly and have fingers dug into his raw skin constantly by the boy in the desk next to him. It was only Uryuu's extreme shyness and fear of the way his father would react that kept him from responding in kind with a book to the head; politeness be damned.

All should be well. There's no more sunburn, no more peeling skin and Uryuu has gone back to a state of comfortable anonymity among his classmates.

Instead, Uryuu finds himself examining the skin across his cheeks and the bridge of his nose, frowning.

"What are you doing?" It's late enough at night that Ryuuken is home and Uryuu nearly jumps out of his skin when he realizes that he's leaning in the doorway, arms crossed and a puzzled look on his face.

For once, Uryuu is more than happy to have his father's attention on him. If anyone will know what to do, it's him. "I have spots," Uryuu announces in all seriousness, brow furrowed in just the slightest beginnings of worry.

The look that comes over Ryuuken's face at Uryuu's pronouncement is something so foreign and unfamiliar that Uryuu can not for the life of him identify it. Ryuuken's mouth contorts for a moment but he quickly controls himself and shakes his head. "You do _not _have spots, Uryuu. Those are freckles."

"Oh." So they're not spots after all, not that this makes Uryuu like them any more. Uryuu frowns again. "What are freckles?" he asks blankly.

"In your case, it's because after getting sun burnt you didn't tan evenly. They'll be gone by winter." Having lost interest, Ryuuken walks away, proceeding down the hall to either his room or the office.

Uryuu lingers in front of the bathroom mirror for just a moment longer, staring at his reflection moodily before going to get ready for bed.

He hopes winter will come soon.


	50. 50: Crowded

**Title**: Crowded**  
>AN**: As ever, nothing really important to report. I always appreciate feedback.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p><em>If I am the shadow of another then what am I, really? Am I anything at all or am I just the shadow hiding from light?<em>

Uryuu is by now aware that his father, for all his efforts to project the image of constant dispassion and apathy, is a man with just as many moods and just as wide a range of emotions as anyone else. Flashes of good humor and cheer are admittedly difficult to come by; you have to catch him on a good day, and those are even more difficult to come by. Frankly, Ryuuken doesn't have too many good days, he just doesn't. He just doesn't. They have been getting less and less common, and what Uryuu's afraid of is that sooner or later, he won't have any left at all.

Today isn't one of those good days. Today Ryuuken's mood seems fixed firmly on "melancholy", or if not melancholy then at least gloomy. Gloomy is probably closer to the mark, yes.

In moments like this, Uryuu sees further beneath his father's carefully constructed mask than he suspects Ryuuken would like, and frankly it would be an understatement to say that Uryuu never likes what he sees. Perhaps at his core, Uryuu is most of the time too afraid to look properly, but when he does he understands why he was so apprehensive and can't imagine how he could have forgotten to begin with.

He's looking at that picture again. Uryuu, standing at the door to the office, peeks through the crack between door and wall, sees his father the way he is now. He grits his teeth and feels a coldness that has nothing to do with the autumn chill or the frigid house infiltrate his blood and his bones, but doesn't drag his eyes away. Even those caught abstracted by their past, trying vainly to commit blasphemy and bring back the past from the ashes deserve a watcher.

This is a scene that has long since become familiar to Uryuu. Ryuuken is leaning back in his chair, one hand clapped against his forehead as if trying to ward off pain and the other balancing the plain wooden picture frame, running his fingers over the glass. The silence of the place is nearly overwhelming; Uryuu dares not breathe too loudly, entirely too familiar with the stance his father takes now.

Even with his child's mind, still capable of believing in certain fairy tales and superstitions, Uryuu doesn't know what Ryuuken hopes to accomplish, staring at that picture of Mother for hours at a time in silence. It's just a picture; it doesn't change with the days or with the weather or the seasons. All a picture can do is age as the years pass, the glossy surface cracking and yellowing and the face shown there growing distorted and hazy. A picture can't speak when someone speaks to it and it can't respond or live. Ryuuken has to know that, but still Uryuu has found him in this position more than once.

Uryuu watches a few minutes more and his eyes silently follow the progress of the picture and its frame back down onto the surface of the desk. Ryuuken sighs heavily and goes back to his work, still ostensibly unaware that he has an eavesdropper.

A generally accepted rule is that the office is one of those rooms in the house where Uryuu simply does not go. Not unless it's an emergency, and sometimes not even then. Under normal circumstances, Uryuu abides by this rule; his father's anger isn't something to be trifled with. But today, without particularly knowing why, Uryuu slips inside.

Ryuuken still doesn't seem to notice his presence at all, though admittedly this isn't unusual. Standing at his father's left side, Uryuu casts an apprehensive look in his direction, and still going unnoticed, slips the picture down off the desk and looks at it.

Sure enough, it's just the same as it ever was. Mother wears that same smile and there are rich, green trees in the background. If Uryuu breathes in deeply he can almost smell summer there; almost, but not quite, when the illusion shatters and he remembers that all the leaves are brown and dead. She looks just the same as ever, unchanging, frozen in time. Uryuu knows better than to expect anything different.

_I wish you could hear me…_

He comes very close to having a heart attack or at least passing out when a hand settles on his shoulder. The sudden stop of the pen scratching against paper should have been a clue that Ryuuken had noticed his presence, but Uryuu simply didn't hear.

"You look just like her." It's impossible to define the note in Ryuuken's oddly soft voice as he lifts the picture out of Uryuu's hand and places it back on the desk. The moment he no longer has a hand on his shoulder Uryuu beats a hasty retreat out of the room, going to huddle on his bed and stare out the window at passing cars.

That simple sentence tells him all he needs to know, that Ryuuken looks at him the same way he does that picture, trying to will the past to come back. Uryuu can't say that he likes it. It makes him nervous, brings up that ugly feeling of resentment he has been trying for so long, without success, to conquer and kill. _Why can't he look at me and see me?_

Uryuu still can't bring himself to speak. This house is so crowded, and so, _so _empty too. He doesn't think he could make himself heard if he did chance to speak.


	51. 51: Books

**Title**: Books**  
>AN**: Nothing to report.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>It's raining this dreary Saturday afternoon, freezing rain that makes the slight layer of snow on the ground into sleet and the ground too slippery to safely walk or drive on, and Uryuu is stranded alone in the house. Soken's told him not to come over when it's raining or snowing and Ryuuken is at work, knee-deep in car crash victims and flu patients; he likely won't be back until long after dark.<p>

Having done all his homework, there isn't much to do except stare out the window and watch the rain freeze into ice droplets on the window. Ryuuken was up last night smashing icicles off the porch ceiling with a broom; he's going to have to do the same thing when he gets home tonight, Uryuu can imagine. He resists the urge to turn up the thermostat, knowing Ryuuken can tell the difference and for the longest time finds himself huddling under a thick quilt, cheek pressed against the window.

It feels like it's been raining forever, and indeed Uryuu hasn't seen the sun since Wednesday. Since then there has been a more or less constant, steady rapping on the roof by the pounding water. Oddly, Uryuu's also been sleeping better than he usually does.

Eventually, he finds himself, blanket still wrapped around his shoulders, wandering into the office.

Lately, Uryuu's curiosity has finally completely overcome his hesitation of entering the off-limits room. Naturally he won't be venturing in there when Ryuuken's home without good reason, but alone without anything else to do, Uryuu is naturally drawn to a room full of books, even books that look nothing like the small, flimsy ones he's used to.

For a moment upon entering Uryuu feels for all the world like someone does when skipping school or upon having taken an extra serving without permission or without being noticed: slightly nervous, quite giddy and extremely edgy. That feeling evaporates soon enough and he pulls a random book out of a shelf at eye level.

Tottering a little under the weight of the immense tome, Uryuu sinks to the floor, balancing the book on his lap and fighting with the quilt to get it disentangled from his legs. Swallowing with some difficulty, he rests a small hand on the cover (_The Psychology of the Human Mind_, written in bold, white, sans-serif letters) of the book. If this is a precipice then Uryuu jumps off the side soon enough, for it takes him almost no time at all to surmount his apprehension and open the book.

Brow furrowing, Uryuu finds himself flipping through the book. Normally he would not do so—his reading habits involve the methodical, front-to-back devouring of a book—but Uryuu is bored and it takes him a while to find a topic that catches his eye. He flips through the pages idly, occasionally stopping to gawp at some bizarre or grotesque illustration before moving on.

Finally, a topic that sounds promising appears, and Uryuu starts to read in earnest.

The young boy laps it up, eager to have anything to do. That Uryuu doesn't understand half of what he's reading does present something of an impediment, but when close inspection of the room reveals that there is no dictionary to be found, Uryuu sits back down and continues his reading, refusing to be daunted or overawed by large, unfamiliar words.

A few terms manage to stick in his head. Things like _"paranoid schizophrenia" _and _"auditory hallucinations". "Bipolar disorder", "anorexia nervosa", "chemical deficiencies" _and _"terminal symptoms" _stand out as well, clinging stubbornly to the fabric of his mind. He is confronted with the stark, unforgiving photograph of a woman whose ribs protrude from her waxen, too-tight skin like steps on a ladder. Her eyes, heavy and sullen, are dark holes that burn beneath Uryuu's skin, and eventually he turns his horrified, but all the same fascinated eyes from her form, but he doesn't stop turning the pages, and he doesn't put up the book. This will be worth returning to, he thinks, when he has more knowledge, and more time on his hands.

Uryuu only realizes how long he's been reading when he hears a car pull up in the driveway. He flinches, replaces the book on the shelf and quickly retreats to his room, leaving the office where he found it and just barely remembering to close the door behind him.

It's impossible not to crack a small smile when Uryuu sticks his head out his bedroom door and sees Ryuuken holding a broom and wearing a decidedly irked expression marching towards the front door. Uryuu can guess his thoughts now—_I just did this last night; where are they coming from?_

He won't tell his father about reading out of the book this afternoon. For good or ill, Uryuu is learning to keep things from his father; he doesn't call Soken "Sensei" where Ryuuken can hear and the small cross pendant he always keeps out of sight, hiding it under his mattress when he's at home. The secrets he gathers to himself and doesn't let go of. Of course, Uryuu spends half his time these days hiding from his father anyway, wary of the man whom he knows can't separate his image from that of his mother's; he's stopped trying to actively seek out the man's company. Secrets go with that.

_I wonder what it means, _Uryuu thinks to himself, as he goes to the kitchen for some crackers. The telltale sound of crashing ice comes emanates from the porch. _I wonder what the book means, and everything else too._


	52. 52: Jump

**Title**: Jump**  
>AN**: As ever I have absolutely nothing to say, except (_deep breath_): Carpe Diem! Sorry, had to insert that.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>Ryuuken doesn't think he's laid eyes on Uryuu's elementary school since the first day of his first year there—he took him there the first day and drove him home so Uryuu would know the way. He went to an older, considerably poorer school himself—indeed, Ryuuken isn't sure that this building even existed when he was in elementary school. It looks much like any elementary school: large buildings, high fence, and very crowded at this time of day.<p>

He's gotten off of work a bit earlier than usual and Ryuuken has decided that he may as well kill two birds with one stone and see if Uryuu's still around. It occurs to him that Uryuu may have already started home or that he might be in the process of sneaking off to see his grandfather, and if so, Ryuuken will just go home and wait, and scold if necessary. It doesn't matter much to him either way.

As for why exactly Ryuuken has gotten out of work so early as this, he'd rather not reflect on that. He can still pick up on the noxious tang of too much blood and something else he can't help but think he's better off being ignorant of the identity of. That reality is bad enough; thinking of the incident that conspired to make it possible is something Ryuuken doesn't want to think about.

It's still more than a little chilly out; a cold March to be sure, made bearable only by the lack of wind and a weak, watery sun. The close-clipped grass has interspersed a few green shoots through the yard but is still largely brown and dead. The trees are for the most part naked of leaves, clothed only by infant buds.

Ryuuken looks around the slowly but steadily thinning crowd of small children and their parents, trying to spot one small, dark-haired, bespectacled child in particular. All of these students look quite young, eight or nine at the oldest; he can only assume that the older levels have already set off for home on their own.

He knows he must stand out here. For one, most of the adults present either are or simply look younger than him—none of them have graying hair, at any rate. The quiet, unsmiling man moving silently through the crowd has none of the demeanor of a parent.

After a roughly ten minute longer search reveals no sign of Uryuu, Ryuuken calls it quits and starts to head back down the concrete path towards the familiar, rather beat-up old car. Uryuu's probably struck out for home or his grandfather's by now; it's nearly four, after all.

Then, Ryuuken spots a child sitting on the bough of a large oak tree.

Back pressed against the trunk of the tree, Uryuu is absorbed, nose-deep, in what appears to be a library book, if the dark green band on the spine is any clue to its identity. He is murmuring something under his breath to himself, plainly ignorant of all that goes on around him and unaware of his father's presence. His long legs hand off the branch.

_He could easily be nabbed with this absent-minded attitude of his, _Ryuuken thinks to himself irritably. _He'd be halfway to China before he noticed anything out of place. _"Oh, so _there _you are," Ryuuken says to his son, not without an acerbic note in his voice.

Uryuu looks up, startled to hear his father's voice. This is the moment when Ryuuken realizes that he is almost exactly on eye level with him; he doesn't think he's ever locked eyes with Uryuu to have them on eye level before. Blue eyes open wide and, visibly stunned, Uryuu looks at him like he's never quite seen him before. He doesn't smile; if anything, the only emotion registering on Uryuu's face is naked shock.

_Is this really so surprising?_

What happens next is what manages to leave Ryuuken every bit as stunned as Uryuu. Before he knows what's happening, Ryuuken finds himself with a child's arms clamped firmly around his neck and as he raises his arms to catch him, the sudden weight knocks him off balance and he falls to the ground.

_Well… _Ryuuken isn't at first entirely sure what to think, trying to catch his bearings as passers-by stare and he rubs the back of his head. Uryuu, realizing he's made a misstep, and a frankly uncharacteristic misstep at that, and perhaps even realizing just how stupid that was, smiles uncertainly and backs up.

At the very least, Ryuuken can't say that it feels cold outside anymore. Sitting up and checking his glasses for damage, he looks over at Uryuu. "Are you alright?"

Uryuu nods. His library book lies discarded in the dust.

Ryuuken pushes his glasses back up the bridge of his nose with two fingers and draws in a deep breath as he stands. "_Please _don't do that again. You could have hurt yourself."

The child ducks his head. "Yes, sir." He picks up the book and brushes it off before following Ryuuken in the direction of the car, silent and again subdued, with nothing at all to say.


	53. 53: Flu

**Title**: Flu**  
>AN**: I think this could probably be used as a reason to get kids vaccinated against the flu.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p><em>He just has the flu, <em>Ryuuken tells himself, pressing a hand to Uryuu's burning forehead, _and he _won't _be going to school tomorrow. _It certainly is the season for flu, and he's actually been seeing more flu patients at the hospital right now then he did last winter when there was still snow on the ground. _He almost certainly picked it up from a classmate, who is no doubt at home sick himself. _Ryuuken sighs and goes back to focusing on the task at hand.

Even clad in a jacket as he is, with a blanket and a thick quilt swathed around him, Uryuu is still shaking convulsively, complaining of the cold. Ryuuken's gone so far as to turn up the thermostat some five degrees over what it normally is, but to no avail. In Ryuuken's experience, flu chills are impenetrable; the only thing that will make them stop is the cessation of the illness itself.

For now, Ryuuken is sitting by his son's bed in a chair dragged from the kitchen table, pressing a wet wash cloth against Uryuu's forehead, watching the hours slip by with unbearable sluggishness.

As many times as Uryuu has been sick in the past (and there have been _many _times), Ryuuken doesn't think he has ever seen him quite this ill before. Not so feverish, not so sweaty, not so cold and not so weak. If anything, he's been getting sick less and less often over the years; at least he had been up until now. Maybe Ryuuken is just being pessimistic (and for once he hopes it's just that) but he can't help but think that this is going to be the gateway to a slippery slope. He really does hope he's wrong.

Ryuuken removes the cloth from Uryuu's forehead and submerges it in the bucket of ice water at his feet, wringing out the excess water before replacing it. It's maybe nine at night and Uryuu has fallen into a light, fitful sleep (more so than usual), shivering even in slumber.

Sayuri was often sick too; in particular, she'd once been laid up with flu herself for Isshin and Masaki's wedding, but that was hardly the only time. Of course, Ryuuken hadn't known how sickly Sayuri was at first, since she was liable to hide it and had always come to school no matter how awful she felt. Once they were married there was no hiding it though and the sound of thick, phlegmy coughing was hardly an unusual occurrence. Every time it started, there was the weary ritual of thermometers, cough medicine, antibiotics and Ryuuken having to make Sayuri promise she wouldn't do anything to make it worse. How often she actually kept that promise is anyone's guess, given she was always so slow to recover.

_This is something I wish he didn't have from her._

Ryuuken reaches out and touches Uryuu's cheek to see if the fever has gone down at all. The heat is intense and no, it hasn't, not at all; if anything it feels worse. He starts to wonder whether or not a hospital trip is warranted once the morning comes. Rubbing the waxen, slightly discolored skin absently, Ryuuken feels sweat and for a long moment he thinks Uryuu is crying. Even after he rids himself of that delusion and accepts that the moisture is only sweat, the sensation is disturbing and he quickly removes his hand.

_It's going to be a long night._

-0-0-0-

And it only gets longer. Ryuuken is roused from a state of uneasy half-sleep by the sound of Uryuu coughing spasmodically. When he comes fully to, highly bloodshot blue eyes are looking at him out of the darkness; Uryuu lies awake in bed, prostrate and flat out on his back.

"May I… have some water?" Uryuu croaks weakly, voice cracking agonizingly on every syllable, barely audible.

Ryuuken obliges him, brow creasing all the while. When he gets back Uryuu is in the plainly painstaking process of sitting up so he won't choke when he drinks the water. His thin little arms shake and Ryuuken feels the need to intervene.

Upon putting a hand on Uryuu's back to prop him up, Ryuuken comes to a realization that inspires both shock and alarm: the jacket Uryuu is wearing over his night shirt is absolutely soaked.

Uryuu gulps down the water with frightening speed and, wordlessly, Ryuuken starts to examine him more closely.

No longer is Uryuu's face wet. Instead, his skin is still very hot, and now very dry as well. The child is swaying a little, lips pressed tightly together as if in pain, and he is still shaking. For the first time, Ryuuken notices the nearly overpowering stench of rancid sweat permeating the room and he coughs.

One look more at Uryuu tells Ryuuken that he can't wait any longer.

"Come on," Ryuuken murmurs, "we're leaving." Admittedly in a hurry, he quickly relieves Uryuu of the sodden jacket and helps get him into dry, clean clothes, hands starting to shake just a touch. At this point Ryuuken doubts Uryuu's ability to walk so, despite the fact that Uryuu, even being a small child, is getting on the big side to be carried, picks him up, wraps him in a dry blanket gotten out of the hall closet and puts him in the back of the car. He doesn't call ahead to the hospital; Ryuuken has stalled long enough and he isn't about to waste any more time.

"It's very late," he tells the ill, pallid child as he puts him in the backseat of the car, "so I don't think the hospital will be all that crowded." All this Uryuu absorbs with disinterest; his eyes are drooping in tiredness. He nods absently and drops off to sleep almost as soon as the car starts to move.

-0-0-0-

When Uryuu wakes up the following morning in the hospital, Ryuuken has had a number of questions answered.

Yes, it is just the flu that Uryuu has contracted and not something else. Given the way Uryuu was behaving, Ryuuken had for a while thought it might be something more serious, but closer inspection proves that it is indeed just the flu, and that Uryuu's main problem at present is dehydration. He'll be able to leave and go home by the afternoon.

Ryuuken sighs and sinks into the hard, straight-backed chair he pulled up beside Uryuu's hospital bed, tugging on his crumpled shirt collar. Having received proper care the boy is much more aware and alert than he was the night before, albeit extremely tired and a touch weak.

_I do not think I ever want to repeat that experience._

One look at Uryuu's wan face tells Ryuuken that he doesn't want to, either.


	54. 54: Funeral

**Title**: Funeral**  
>AN**: When I go to funeral homes with my family I don't look at the corpse. It's just creepy.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>Uryuu feels very odd wearing as much black as he is right now. He has no doubt that his father feels the same way, and though Uryuu would never say as much out loud, he can't help but think that Ryuuken looks a bit odd in black. Out of place would be the right word for what black looks like on them both.<p>

As far as he can remember, Uryuu has never been to a funeral before. In the dusty shadow-days before he can remember anything at all he might have been to a few, but he can not account for those days so he doesn't try. The funeral home is uncomfortably warm and he has long since unbuttoned his jacket (Uryuu is a bit diffident as far as buttons are concerned, and unless it is too cold for comfort he generally keeps coats and jackets unbuttoned); no one seems to notice or care. Ryuuken himself is unmoved by the heat, jacket buttoned and face unemotional, but Uryuu can see a thin trail of sweat down his neck and pooling in his shirt collar.

Though Uryuu doesn't know it, the one who has died was a relative of Ryuuken's on his mother's side, and a very distant one at that. There are a great many people here in the funeral home and it's been a horribly awkward affair; he and his father have never met any of these people and they've never met them either. For the most part Uryuu and Ryuuken remain isolated from the other relatives, apart from a terse and uncomfortable hello exchanged between Uryuu's father and a man who seems to be in charge as far as the family unit goes.

(_"Thought they were a couple of morticians at first," _Uryuu hears the man murmur to a woman once they pass, _"they way they're dressed"._)

Uryuu's appearance has been drawing a few stares, much to his discomfort. It's not been all that long since he caught the flu and he isn't fully recovered yet; his face is still shockingly pale (even for him) and noticeably ashen and listless. The adults gawk at him when they see that and only when they realize he knows he's being looked at do they avert their stares. The adults next look to Ryuuken, bemused frowns on their faces. _Has he noticed? How long has it been? Can't believe he let his son get that sick._ Their whispers are inaudible but written plainly in stark ink lines on their faces.

The children present look at Uryuu long and hard partly for the same reason as the adults, but also because he is one of them.

Or maybe he is not. Uryuu doesn't know the dead man's exact relation to him, but he knows that, however distant, he is a relative and that means that if these children are the dead man's relatives, then they are his relatives as well. They stare openly at Uryuu and he sneaks surreptitious glances through slants of window-sunlight at them in return.

(_Healthy, well-built children with tanned faces and bright, lively brown eyes, maybe half a dozen, ranging in ages from four to ten, scattered throughout the large room. Dressed even in somber tones as they are they never stay still, not for a second. Whether moving around the room or just fidgeting at the side of their parents, they are always moving. Itching to get out of those scratchy, restrictive funeral clothes, go outside and run around in circles until they fully expend their pent-up energy and collapse. Uryuu has never worn anything but funeral clothes, he is quiet and still, and he gives no hint towards restraining energy. He resembles them not at all.) _

In the end, Uryuu makes no attempt to approach any of them; even if Ryuuken's hand was not on his shoulder, he wouldn't move. He and his father are the outsiders here, disturbingly still among people defined by movement, and the others, though as the group at large nears the coffin, though they stand shoulder to shoulder with them, might as well be miles away. They somehow both stand right next to the two strangers and give them a wide berth at the same time.

Uryuu feels like he's standing in a bubble, until the moment when one of the girls, maybe four years old and easily the youngest of the children apart from the infant, a girl with long, tousled black curls and a dark brown dress, smiles and waves at him, breaking the stance of inaction taken by the mismatched bevy of children (Now that Uryuu thinks about it, the number is closer to fifteen, not six).

Shyly, Uryuu raises a hand and responds, before ducking his head and staring straight ahead. He will never see this girl again, never know her name, and it all seems so futile.

Ryuuken's grip on his shoulder is almost cruelly tight as they near the viewing area. Uryuu flinches, biting back some sound to give voice to his pain. He cranes his neck up to look at his father, who wears an impenetrable face, much like his normal one but even more distant. So distant that if the others are miles away from the two of them, then Uryuu is light years apart from his father.

"You're hurting me," Uryuu whispers, and even if Ryuuken does not spare a glance for his son he removes his hand from Uryuu's shoulder immediately and braces it, fingers stretched as far as they can, on his back instead.

If it were up to him, Uryuu wouldn't come up to the viewing area, to see the dead man lying as if asleep in his coffin. If it were up to him he would go back and sit on the front pew and wait for his father to be done here.

It's not his choice though; he has Ryuuken's hand on his back, propelling him forward, and, maybe out of politeness but more likely out of morbid curiosity, he looks at the man inside.

The dead man is somewhere past middle age, maybe in his early sixties. He has iron gray hair and a paunch, and the dark blue, pinstriped suit he wears doesn't fit quite so well across the middle of his abdomen. Others might look at him and think he was just sleeping, but Uryuu is not for a moment fooled.

All living things have something about them, something Uryuu can't describe but is always aware of. Something like a pulse, or buzzing. Ryuuken is close to inaudible compared to the pulse of life. It bothers Uryuu immensely, how quiet he is. The man with liberal silver streaks in his brown hair, an impassive countenance that would put a statue to shame and so, _so _quiet.

This one, in front of him, he's so… _silent. _Even compared to Ryuuken, he's just so unnaturally quiet and still.

After about half a minute, Ryuuken motions him away from the coffin and Uryuu is all too eager to tear his gaze away.


	55. 55: Less

**Title**: Less**  
>AN**: All's quiet on the home front.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>"Why aren't there more of us?" This is the question that comes clean out of the blue on a sweltering summer's day, the one that Soken has so dreaded, and even though he's expected it for years now, he's still not ready for it at all. Uryuu has a habit of asking questions he shouldn't be.<p>

Soken is sitting wearily against the trunk of a solid oak tree, Uryuu standing in front of him, clearly tired himself but stubbornly refusing to own up to it. It almost brings a smile to think that, at least when it comes to matters of showing weakness Uryuu has developed something of a proud streak, the same as his father and his grandfather—almost, but not quite. Soken knows that Uryuu's unwillingness to admit he's tired comes from more than just a proud streak. The weight of reality is entirely too much to allow for smiles.

Feeling cold even with the summer heat and his thick wool cloak, Soken sighs and stares heavily up at his grandson. He'd hoped this question would never be asked, but with all the other stories Uryuu has been told, it was inevitable. "There was a war."

Uryuu frowns. "Why?" he asks uncomprehendingly, with an expression entirely too serious for his youthful face and small stature, but this is no situation for smiles, and Uryuu does not smile as much as he used to. Soken has only been able to watch as Uryuu, always quiet and serious, has grown more withdrawn, more somber, and, though Uryuu would never admit it, unhappier as well.

For the longest time, Soken does not answer. Finally, he dons a weak smile so out of place with the circumstances that it may as well be a hideous grimace. "It's a long story, Uryuu."

In response, Uryuu shrugs and sits down beside him, pulling his knees up to his chest, eyes fixed expectantly on his grandfather's face. "I have time," he answer simply.

Soken pats his shoulder resignedly. _I rather wish you didn't. _"You would need it, I suppose."

He gets the feeling that Uryuu's going to be smiling even less when he's done.


	56. 56: German

**Title**: German**  
>AN**: Another short one, and look, kind of humorous as well. What Uryuu learned in the aftermath of the previous chapter will be addressed next time.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>On the weekends when he can't go with his grandfather and train, Uryuu has decided to undertake a new project in his spare time. Well, he <em>says <em>it's a project, but more accurately it's a twinkle in his imagination, since as of yet Uryuu has absolutely no idea how to go about doing it, and doesn't have the means either.

_There has to be German books in here somewhere, _Uryuu thinks to himself in frustration, as he, with great deliberation, looks over the shelves crammed with books. Ryuuken's late hours do have some use after all, it seems. _There are books about everything else in here; there have to be books about German._

Plainly put, Uryuu wants to learn how to speak German.

There are several reasons that he can name. One is that Uryuu still remembers the time his grandfather mentioned to his friend that their family was German before moving to Japan. Two is that, during training, Soken has mentioned that ginto call-spells use German for the incantations, albeit very bad German.

As for the most pressing reason Uryuu has suddenly been struck with the urge to learn a foreign language…

Well, even if Ryuuken and Soken think he hasn't noticed, Uryuu is plainly aware of each and every time they choose to mutter under their breath in German. The looks of irritation on their faces every time they lapse into the language are frankly amusing—every time afterwards the eyes of both immediately swing to Uryuu to make sure he didn't hear; Uryuu feigns ignorance perfectly—but more than that they are bemusing and rouse Uryuu's curiosity like nothing else can.

If it takes a thousand years, Uryuu _will _find out what those words mean.


	57. 57: Awake

**Title**: Awake**  
>AN**: Nothing to say.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>The darkness of night is cold and impenetrable and it is a place where doubts and fears fester and metastasize into something that slink just footsteps behind, hiding in the shadow cast. A Quincy is more likely to hunt at night or when the light is weak, given that they are less likely to be spotted by Shinigami or by the general population running after thin air with a spirit bow in hand. However, that doesn't make night safe—quite the opposite, really—especially not to the mind of a child who is prone to seeing danger everywhere to begin with.<p>

Sometimes, Uryuu can't help but marvel at how deeply his father sleeps. He wonders how Ryuuken can even hear his alarm clock in the morning, sleeping so far down that he doesn't even notice his son creeping into the room and sitting down on the floor, silent as he is. Ryuuken doesn't hear the door creaking open or someone sitting on the floor by the bed; he continues to sleep, undisturbed and flat on his back. Given that Uryuu will get in trouble if he's caught here, that's just as well and he's thankful for it.

It's cold, like always, so Uryuu sits hunched over, knees pulled close to his chest, silent in the dark. This is not exactly a nightly ritual; something more along the lines of maybe once or twice a week, three times at the most. He stays for an hour at the most, not even entirely sure what he's doing sitting on the floor of his father's bedroom in the middle of the night and praying Ryuuken doesn't wake up. In theory it's because Uryuu thinks this might help him sleep, but in reality it rarely works, usually because he's too afraid of what will happen if Ryuuken catches him here to relax at all.

Uryuu still has nightmares of Hollows, no less strong than they were when he first started to have them. The only difference is that he doesn't wake up crying or shouting like he used to when he was younger; there is still the jolt, the momentary shock of waking terror, and the cold sweat, but there are tears no more, at least not more than one or two squeezed out upon first waking up.

Tonight, nightmares are not Uryuu's problem. If it were just that he might not be doing this right now. His problem is that he can't sleep at all, no matter how hard he tries. Sleep can not reach him with the state he is in now. Uryuu may be tired, his eyes may be drooping and every fiber of his body may scream for sleep, but he remains awake.

There are troubles plenty in this mind tonight, and Uryuu just can't sleep at all.

The anxiety about Hollows remains whatever time of day it is, be it when the sun's shining or when there's only the hazy moon and the stars. Indignation that these beasts are allowed to go about eating living and dead souls mingles with the fear of being attacked himself. There's always that with the lingering fear that if and when he starts to hunt Hollows himself like Grandfather he won't be strong enough, and he'll be ripped apart like so many others.

New revelations that Uryuu could have done better being ignorant of keep him from rest at night now at well.

Upon poking and prodding and shamelessly begging, Uryuu got Grandfather to tell him the story, and he found out why, out of all the Quincy, there was left just him, Soken, and maybe his father (Uryuu doesn't know how to classify Ryuuken at present, frankly isn't sure what's going on with him).

He's not angry, he keeps telling himself, he really isn't. Very sad, deeply bewildered and lonelier than ever (_So there's just us, then? Just us in the whole world?_), but not angry, which is very strange when Uryuu stops to think about it. A systematic extermination of his people, carried out by the Shinigami, granted with extreme provocation. The whole 'balance of the universe' thing goes straight over Uryuu's head but Uryuu understands the rest of it.

It's hard not to be just a touch afraid, though. _It was so long ago, _he tries to reassure himself. With some extra years and experience later Uryuu will think that two hundred years is not nearly large enough a gap, but for now the same separation of time seems like eons. Even so, it's hard not to be nervous at shadows. Uryuu has never met a Shinigami, at least not as far as he knows; Soken has shown him how to identify one though—_look for the red strands_—and apparently, Uryuu is going to be on the lookout for men and women in black clothes running around with swords from now on.

(_"Do not approach," Soken makes him promise. "If you see a Shinigami that's fine, but do not approach unless I am there. I don't think they would hurt you, not a child and certainly not after all this time, but I would rather not take any chances on that."_

_This doesn't match up at all with what Soken just told Uryuu about the Shinigami, and the heavy, serious tone of voice his grandfather adopts bothers Uryuu more than a little bit, but he nods and tries not to read into it.)_

As for the largest source of anxiety in Uryuu's life, he doesn't have to go far to see it or be in the presence of it.

Escaping doubts and fears is impossible with the curtain of night extinguishing all but the weakest sources of light. When sleep can not find him, Uryuu starts to worry, and starts to wonder whether it will be shadows and memories of the past, and not Hollows or Shinigami, that will be responsible for swallowing him whole and cutting him off from light altogether. This house is already steeped in shadows and echoes long gone yet still there; Uryuu doesn't like to think about what it's doing to him.

This is long enough. If he stays any longer Uryuu runs the risk of finally drifting off and being caught when his father wakes in the morning. Uryuu does try not to make himself a target for Ryuuken's anger.

As quietly as he sat down, he stands again, frowning as the other, deep asleep, catches his eye.

His face is drained and weary as, entertaining for one moment a hope, he reaches out and presses his fingers on top of his father's hand. Ryuuken never so much as stirs and Uryuu's eyes droop. _I wish I could sleep like that._

The door is pushed shut without a sound and Uryuu goes back to try to fend off doubts and worries and shadows and chase down sleep in his own bed. The chances of getting any rest tonight are slim, but Uryuu will take what he can get. He's used to that.


	58. 58: Talk

**Title**: Talk**  
>AN**: Again, nothing to note.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>Never let it be said that Uryuu can't be conversational if caught in the right mood and by the right person. Granted, he is often restricted and limited by a pervasive shyness and a crippling lack of vital socialization, but that's no reason to assume that he can't speak to people at all.<p>

The woman is quite elderly, in her seventies with gleaming silver hair pulled back in a sloppy knob. Her clothes are plain and worn: a knit sweater, long skirt and long-sleeved shirt despite the pleasantly warm weather; comparing his grandfather's tendency to wear thick clothes at all times of the year to this woman's Uryuu starts to wonder whether the elderly just aren't ever warm. That could be it, he supposes.

When the old woman approaches Uryuu and asks to speak with him, he, even though he's more than a little nervous, nods and walks over to where she's standing by a park bench on a busy sidewalk. He's walking home from school so he has plenty of time to stop and talk to someone, and Uryuu, for whatever reason, feels far less threatened by the elderly than he does by younger adults or those close to his own age.

She smiles with that same tired quality that Uryuu has so often seen ingrained in his grandfather's face. "Young man, would you mind keeping an old woman company while she waits for the bus?"

So he does, and they talk, or more accurately she asks Uryuu questions and he answers, mostly quiet and shy but sometimes more animatedly.

Uryuu isn't used to being questioned too closely about school. He knows that Ryuuken keeps an eye on his grades, demanding to see tests and homework and quizzes and having no reaction unless the grades do not meet with his satisfaction; he sets a rigorous standard for academic achievement that Uryuu, the perfectionist (even if not quite so much of one as his father), usually manages to meet. Time with his grandfather is taken up by training, and in the precious free time grasped Soken doesn't seem to think it too important to pester Uryuu about school.

Granting that it's unusual for someone to be asking him about school, really _asking _about school itself instead of just the grades, Uryuu can't really complain. Even if he's not at all practiced with this 'talking' thing, it's nice to talk about something mundane with someone, just once.

The scene is shattered with one simple move.

There has been a veritable sea of people coming and going, their conversation and the escaping noise from CD players and Walkmans mingling with the cacophony of passing cars and buses. It's just a little dizzying, to be honest, and Uryuu can't make heads or tails of the crowd. A passer-by comes by, humming absently to himself and adjusting the volume on his Walkman. He walks straight through the elderly woman, unaffected, and walks on down the sidewalk without skipping a beat.

With that, the expression of the woman's face shifts to melancholy and Uryuu's does the same. He doesn't usually have this trouble anymore, but there are so many people around here; that, he supposes, could have confused him.

This explains several things, such as why the woman is wearing such thick clothes for this weather, why no one else seemed to see her, or why those walking by would occasionally frown at Uryuu, baffled. Uryuu has always been the strange little boy who, when he was very young, would wave hello and goodbye to things almost no one else could see.

"_The dead who linger on seek out the living who can see them because they have gone unnoticed for so long. Those who can see them can speak to them and end the silence in which they now exist."_

So that's why she singled him out.

Uryuu manages the lopsided, half-life of a sad smile. He murmurs "I'm sorry" and walks away without another word, never looking back. It's too much for right now.


	59. 59: Value

**Title**: Value**  
>AN**: I've already done something covering the flashback in chapter 124 from Ryuuken's perspective in the fifty-second chapter of _Time in Seconds. _I'm still happy with it and I stand by what I speculated in it (though in retrospect I probably could have stood to elaborate a little more; I might go back and do that in future), so if you want to read it to get Ryuuken's take on the situation, please do. To **Miruial**: I'm reading that manga now; I like it.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>"<em>Fa-Father?" Uryuu's voice cracks and for a moment he strongly considers bowing out and retreating to his room where that unbearably even gaze, belying the tension and anger in the voice, can't follow him. He swallows hard on the lump in his throat and continues. "Why do you hate being a Quincy so much?"<em>

_He's been caught coming home late again; Ryuuken got home from work earlier than usual. As such, Uryuu is in trouble with his father—again. Frankly Uryuu seems to be getting in trouble with the man a lot lately, and Ryuuken is showing increasingly little patience with Uryuu's detours. His tone is sharper each time, the words more snappish and angry rather than just irritated, but Uryuu, as much as he dreads these confrontations, will not stop. He's not willing to give up and he doesn't think he could give up even if he was._

_Ryuuken pauses for a long time, hand stopping over the page of the book. The air grows thick and still and Uryuu waits for what seems an eternity, with every moment readier to bolt._

_This is the fatal question. This is the question at the root of the others and even if Uryuu gets the distinct impression, some sixth sense and drawing off what he knows about Ryuuken, that it's a question whose answer might create more problems than it solves, it has to be asked. Driven by a terrible need, he has to ask._

_Uryuu has always been well-aware that Ryuuken harbors little love for the Quincy lifestyle. The way he reacted to realizing that Uryuu was starting to learn from his grandfather spoke for itself, along with the fact that he refuses to acknowledge the presence of spirits or Hollows and scolds Uryuu soundly if he does. Ryuuken has no use at all for what he flatly calls a dead culture; he's never made any secret of it._

_Up until now though, Uryuu had taken it for granted that Ryuuken's feelings were merely apathy or simple distaste. Not hate, not what he sees now. It's not what Ryuuken says so much as how he says it—scorn, disgust, even loathing all present, all fit to burn the air and wound anything and everything in range._

How did I not notice it before?

_Finally, Ryuuken deigns to look at him for the first time. In voice he has lost nearly all emotion, the icy beginnings of cold anger evaporated and replaced by a heavy, unknowable emotion, something like sadness, but not quite on the mark for it. His gaze is unbearably calm and even, and though everything claiming common sense tells Uryuu to avert his eyes, he can't, and maintains eye contact in tremulous silence._

"_Because you can't make a living off of it."_

-0-0-0-

It's far more difficult than usual to concentrate on homework, huddled alone in his room, the lamp doing nothing to fend off the night shadows creeping sneakily in through the windows. Normally, Uryuu would speed right through math and reading homework with no trouble at all. Not tonight. Tonight, his pencil hovers over the crisp loose-leaf paper and over the workbooks and it trembles. Uryuu puts the pencil down, shuts his eyes and draws a deep breath, steeling his hand before picking it up again.

He still can't concentrate at all.

Immediately after Ryuuken gave his answer, Uryuu bowed out, retreating to the relative privacy of his room and Ryuuken, once again absorbed in his readings, didn't stop him. He may not have even noticed him leaving at all. If he had stayed any longer Uryuu knows he would have ended up breaking down or saying something that would have gotten him into trouble with his father again, maybe both.

_What does he mean by that?" _Uryuu wonders over and over again, putting the pencil down once more and watching the way flickering shadows cast by swaying branches dance over his paper. _What does he mean? _The pencil rolls down off his lap and off the bed, landing on the carpet with a dull thud. Uryuu does not go to retrieve it.

Ryuuken's words still play on his mind mercilessly as Uryuu struggles to pin down the meaning behind them. The more he thinks about it, the more he wishes he hadn't asked in the first place.

"_Because you can't make a living off of it." _His voice had never cracked, broken or fluctuated throughout, not when he snapped angrily, not when he was calmer. This Uryuu has come to expect out of Ryuuken—a cool head and constant steely composure—but it makes it harder to read him, and all Uryuu can do is speculate, not sure if what conclusion he comes to is the correct one.

_What does he value? _From what Uryuu knows of Ryuuken, that is a hard question to answer. His work, certainly—Uryuu doubts he would stay so long into the night as often as he does if he wasn't utterly devoted to his work. Money, maybe, if his answer is anything to go on. Other than that, Uryuu has no idea what his father places value on.

Uryuu can name, without hesitation, what Ryuuken without a doubt does not value at all. He's always made it clear that, in his opinion, the dead are emphatically _not _worth saving, and that only the living are worth even trying to save. As a doctor he strives to care for the living but closes his eyes against the dead. He hardens his heart and blinds himself. Ryuuken spends much of his time wandering around half-blind, Uryuu is beginning to notice.

_What makes him happy? _As with before, Uryuu does not need to hesitate to answer the question. Nothing. Uryuu doesn't think his father is ever happy; he's certainly never seen him happy. He doesn't laugh, his smiles are something close to a once-in-a-blue-moon variety, and he always seems hollow and empty. There is nothing Uryuu can think of that makes Ryuuken happy.

_What does he like? _Again, nothing, unless the idea of wading through blood, sweat and tears every day is something that Ryuuken honestly finds appealing, and, who knows, he might, or there might be something else he's getting out of being a doctor that Uryuu is too young or simply not in the right position to understand.

A hand with long, pale fingers reaches down to retrieve the pencil, as Uryuu tries to return his attention to the task at hand. It doesn't work very well; he gets through the first three problems of his math homework before concentration flees again and Uryuu just stares down at the paper, the block on his mind keeping him from going any further.

All the while, there is one place in particular that he has been trying desperately not to go. _What about me? _Uryuu doesn't know where he fits in with all this, doesn't think he ever has. He's been playing second fiddle to work and memory and grief for as long as he can remember and Uryuu doesn't even want to think about where he stands on his father's list of priorities. He knows that Ryuuken doesn't want him dead—if he's sick or hurt his father is always right there—but that's as far as Uryuu's knowledge goes. Beyond that, Ryuuken betrays nothing and Uryuu knows nothing about the way he views him.

"_Because you can't make a living off of it." _Can his antipathy really be explained by something so simple, so straightforward? Ryuuken is a very cut-and-dry sort of man, Uryuu will give him that; Uryuu doesn't think he ever lets personal feelings factor into decisions. Something so dry and lifeless as the need to make a living is exactly the sort of reason he would cite.

_Is it really that simple? _The thought that someone can give up a legacy, a lifetime of memories, a whole culture on something that clear-cut and simple isn't one that gives Uryuu anything resembling a happy feeling.

_Where do I fit in? _Uryuu feels a hard, hot, knotted lump in his throat. He swallows down hard on it, and forces his concentration back on his homework.


	60. 60: Sense

**Title**: Sense**  
>AN**: I mentioned this in a previous oneshot where I dealt with the issue, but I'll say it again. My depiction of the Sanrei glove as a wartime instrument, and precisely what _sort _of wartime instrument comes about because I can't help but think that the Quincy, being a race of hunters, really don't have any good reason to be inventing a weapon that drains the user of all of their power after removing it. Why on Earth would they even need it, if not for warfare? Needless to say, this and all other assertions I make on it is pure speculation.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>The moment he hands it over to him Soken gets the feeling that this wasn't a good idea, but doesn't let on. Adults shouldn't show their doubt to children, especially not to too-serious, too-watchful children like Uryuu, and Soken knows that if he betrays even a sliver of doubt to him his grandson will balk entirely. Uryuu is skittish enough already; Soken has no intention of making it worse.<p>

_Uryuu accepts the thin box with a nod and an all too serious expression, unsmiling, and pauses for a moment to tuck the box in his backpack so that, if Ryuuken gets home before him again tonight, he won't see it._

Soken sits at his rickety kitchen table, staring down at his glass of tea in uncharacteristic distaste. Thirst can not find him; the thought of hunger turns his stomach. It's night out, a few lazy fireflies passing by, and maybe he should close the blinds and go to bed (Not a trace of a Hollow to be found, a true rarity). Eventually he decides against it; tiredness is as absent as thirst and as hunger. Instead, he thinks.

So Ryuuken and Uryuu finally had _that _conversation, and to ill effect, it seems. Uryuu was quite upset today; it's been a long time since Soken last saw him cry like that. It was inevitable, though the effect, Soken can't help but think, was not. The effect that has been brought about owes its existence thanks to Ryuuken's distressing tendency to drop the ball when it comes to this. Soken can think of a thousand ways that this could have been better, but it is what it is. The relationship between father and son continues to fracture.

In between the tears and wounded melancholy, Soken could see the beginnings of anger, or at least indignation, what Uryuu has started to harbor against his father. _Oh no, that is not good. _Things are growing worse between them with each passing day and Soken is becoming increasingly (not to mention uncomfortably) aware of the part he has to play in this convoluted mess. _Weary and forsaken be the days when a man can't be a proper grandfather without helping to wreck the relationship between his son and his grandson._

It's only going to get worse, or so Soken fears. Anger and indignation and resentment are in the air now and he knows where that leads. Arguments, hurtful words passed, estrangement greater than what is present now, until it all breaks entirely.

Uryuu's emotional development and the twisted, stunted lines it takes, is to some extent mirroring what path Ryuuken's took. As children, both are quiet, serious, unsmiling. They both have anger roiling inside of them; Uryuu's is dull so far and comes from a source all too tangible and dateable but Ryuuken, Ryuuken's burned hot and he just seems to have been born angry at his father. Uryuu has always been so painfully withdrawn, starved for affection, near-silent and sad. Though Ryuuken was always quiet and refused to socialize outside of a certain group, he wasn't a truly withdrawn child until his mother died when he was fourteen. After that he was entirely a stranger to his father's eyes, cold and accusatory.

_They are so much alike. _Sometimes Soken looks at his grandson and if it weren't for the fact that there is no trace of resentment or anger against him in those eyes, he would have a hard time differentiating between Uryuu and his father.

_They are so much alike, even if they don't want to admit it, and that will be the downfall of this. _They are too much alike for anyone's good, let alone Uryuu's, and Soken can guess, to no good, how things will turn out.

_Is there anything at all left for me to do? Is there anything at all left that I can do?_

His thoughts shift to something equally as grim and, throat dry, he finally picks up the glass of tea and drains it, even if it is lukewarm from having sat out so long. _The glove…_

It's probably just as well that Uryuu hid it in his backpack; if Ryuuken ever discovered that Soken had given Uryuu the glove he would without a doubt destroy the thing on the spot and honestly, Soken's not sure that he can blame him.

Soken's knowledge of the Sanrei Glove, while not entirely complete, is enough to have had him contemplating getting rid of it on more than one occasion. _The war is over. Why not let go of its most infamous relic? _Fire hot enough to make water boil and evaporate into vapor is the only effective means of destroying the glove; it would be so easy to throw it on the fire and watch it shrivel and dissolve. In the end though, he's always decided against it, telling himself that the glove can still have some positive use if utilized correctly. A foolish hope perhaps, but one a hopeful person like Soken can not discard.

Concisely, the Sanrei Glove was created during the war with the Shinigami, never meant to be anything but a weapon of war, and one devastating both to the victim and the user, at that. It was hardly the only wartime invention created with the express purpose of combating the Shinigami, but it was without a doubt the most notorious. If a Quincy got through the seven-day period successfully and managed to get back to the battlefield, all they had to do was remove it and mow down as many Shinigami in their path with the immense power gained from removal of the Sanrei Glove before the second effect kicked in.

What little records have been recovered from the time of the war inform Soken that no one has ever survived more than ten to fifteen minutes after removing the Sanrei Glove. The problem is that the few records that still exist don't say _why_ the users always died, so Soken chalks it up to one of two causes. One is that those Quincy who did not have a great deal of power to begin with likely died from the massive reiatsu drain. Two is that those who didn't die from that were cut down by the Shinigami who survived the onslaught. He doesn't know if any of that's right at all or if perhaps it was some third, unknown force that caused a Quincy to die after removing the glove.

The glove that Soken gave to Uryuu is the only one known to have survived the war, a grim sort of family heirloom, if you want to think about it like that. The Ishida clan have kept the thing hidden well away for nearly two hundred years now, passed down through the generations because, even if they hope it will never be needed again, there's always a chance that it might be.

The more Soken thinks about it, the more he gets the feeling that giving the glove to Uryuu was not as good an idea and that he should have thrown it on the fire in his stove instead. Ryuuken never would have taken it and Uryuu, not knowing what it is, why it was created and what it was used for, will surely keep it.

_I just gave a suicide weapon to a child who has no idea what it is, _Soken thinks to himself with an internal groan. _Where was my common sense today?_

Well, it's done. Uryuu has the Sanrei Glove now and Soken isn't about to take it back—that would just be rude. He has no doubt that Uryuu will hide it well enough that Ryuuken will likely never have any idea that it's there. Soken can only hope that Uryuu will either never find the need to use it, or that when he does he'll never find the occasion to remove it.

_Good luck with that happening, _he thinks gloomily.


	61. 61: Waiting

**Title**: Waiting**  
>AN**: Again, I have nothing to say.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>Delicate frost patterns on the window are like intricate lace, and, with nothing else to do that he could possibly concentrate on, tired as he is, Uryuu sits in the chair by the window, his stomach pressed to the back and his elbows propped on the top, traces the pattern with one finger. The glass is piercingly cold—Uryuu has long since lost feeling in his fingertip—and significantly fogged up from his slow, steady breathing. Eventually, Uryuu loses interest and goes back to the couch, eyes fixed on the ever-darkening window, waiting for the telltale glow of car lights.<p>

Training got over early today. Soken generally cuts sessions short during summer and winter, when the extremes in weather does neither old man nor child any good. Sessions last longest in spring and in early fall, when the weather is still mild and the sun does not beat down on their heads.

After training was over Uryuu hurried home in case Ryuuken was already there, but he need not have worried. The house was silent and deserted, painted with the colors of the sinking sun. Homework was done in silence and quickly, the pencil scratching furiously and the books laid down on the coffee table afterwards. Uryuu pulled one of those T.V. dinners (congealed macaroni; not the best but good for an aching stomach) out of the freezer when he started to get hungry, ate in equal silence to the world around him, and after that, there was nothing.

Uryuu has been sitting at the couch for… Well, he's not sure; he's lost track of time, even if he has been half-lulled by the steady ticking of the clock on the wall. He has no desire to do anything or go anywhere. He is somehow struck by sluggishness and lethargy at the same time that, though it's not beating fast, his heart is beating so hard that it hurts and aches in his chest.

Unlike those interminable nights when he just can't sleep no matter how hard he tries, Uryuu does not let his mind wander over this topic to that. He doesn't think about the worries of school, eldritch monsters, long-ago wars or a man who looks straight through him. Instead, Uryuu does his best to clear his mind of thought altogether and not think about anything at all. He clings to the "tick-tock" or the clock on the wall against terrible silence and tries not to think.

Surprisingly enough, this method nearly works entirely, and out of all the troubling things it could have picked Uryuu's mind only settles on one.

_When is he coming home?_

In stark, unforgiving honesty, Uryuu doesn't know why he bothers to wait up like he does tonight. Though he doesn't do it all that often, there are some nights when Ryuuken doesn't come home at all. More commonly he doesn't get home until very late at night or until the wee hours of the morning. If Uryuu plans to sit up waiting for him to come home, the whole time, he may end up waiting for a long time.

_Will he even care? Will he just scold me for staying up late?_

Uryuu doesn't know. He really, really doesn't. As much as he dreads having any sort of conversation with the man these days (even with the increasing, ugly urge to argue), he just wishes his father will come home soon, so he doesn't have to be alone in this too-empty, too-silent house and have only his thoughts for company.

-0-0-0-

Ryuuken finally gets home some time between ten and eleven, exhausted beyond recall and not entirely sure he'll be able to make it to the bed before collapsing. As the years go on the long shifts have, for the most part, gotten easier to tolerate, but today was absolutely awful, not simply because Ryuuken had gotten barely five hours of sleep the night before.

When he unlocks the front door and steps across the threshold, Ryuuken discovers that the lamp beside the couch is still on. He sees why and frowns deeply.

Uryuu is fast asleep on the couch, arms wrapped around the pillow fiercely. His face is as pale as ever, and there is something worn and weary about the way his body leans into the sofa cushions.

Too tired to fully process the scene before him, Ryuuken just stares blankly down at his son, not noticing the way he's starting to sweat in his coat. Absently, he wonders if this is the first time Uryuu has done this, or if he has once, twice or a thousand times before, and Ryuuken is just now noticing.

He notices that Uryuu is still wearing his glasses; there are stark red lines starting to be indented on pale flesh. As he does whenever he finds Uryuu asleep with his glasses still on, Ryuuken reaches out and gently pulls them down the bridge of his nose, resting them on top of a textbook lying out on the coffee table. This way the frame won't end up bent and those lines won't cut any further into Uryuu's skin than they already have.

Ryuuken turns off the lamp and goes to bed.


	62. 62: Growing

**Title**: Growing**  
>AN**: The ugliness starts soon.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>There's no doubt that Uryuu's keen awareness of the way his resemblance to his mother affects his father fills him with many conflicting emotions, none of them good. Grief and fear, trying to ignore it and pretend he can be just like any child, innocent enough to be ignorant of it, even when he can barely breathe for the ache in the knot in his throat.<p>

It's always been a reality he's lived with, even before the days when he knew what he was seeing. Even so, Uryuu doesn't think it's ever made him angry before now.

_Why can't you just see me when you're looking at me? _There are the occasions when it's all Uryuu can do not to burst out and scream the words. _Why do you have to put her face over mine? _It's practically on the tip of his tongue and like bile to swallow down and pacify, but never fully gone. The ugly words are always there, just waiting for the day when Uryuu is finally angry enough, finally desperate enough, when the howling inside is just too much to take.

Every time Uryuu catches Ryuuken's gaze lingering on him longer than what's needed, his eyes slightly glazed and his expression abstracted and suggesting pain, he grits his teeth and clamps down on his tongue. Sadness has gone nowhere, but it gets harder, every day, to keep his silence. He is still at his core timid and nervous around him and this is usually what wins out, but resentment is growing too.

Of course, Ryuuken has noticed the moments of anger among the usual quiet wariness. That's what keeps them so infrequent (for now, anyway), that he's noticed. Even if, presumably, Ryuuken doesn't know what it's about, he's still picked up on the occasional sharp edge to Uryuu's voice, the occasional mutinous tone. One sharp, pointed stare, not quite a glare but every bit as piercing, is all that's needed to make Uryuu wilt and go back to deference born out of awe and fear. Uryuu's capacity to be defiant comes and goes like midsummer rain; he's still stuck flipping back and forth between rebelliousness and apprehension.

Still, it burns horribly to even think about how things are now. _This ought to be over and done with. I shouldn't have to be the one dealing with this. _Uryuu sits on the bed and clutches the scruffy old sock monkey, by now a well-established fixture in his room, to his chest as he sometimes does when he's thinking very hard. There's an odd smell to the sock monkey—cedar and mallow, and some warm, peculiar incense—that he finds comforting, and his breathing grows slightly ragged as he inhales. A frigid winter wind batters against the window, a weak sun and unusually dry weather keeping snow from the ground this year.

At times like this, he really does wish that he could shut thought and memory off and exist in peace and silence. A hopeless dream, Uryuu supposes. He'll never be able to make it go away, no matter what he does.

_I'm me. I just want him to look at me and see me. _Another hopeless dream, and one that along with all the coldness in this house, is just serving to make him more and more resentful by the day.

When he finally can't bite his tongue enough, Uryuu doesn't know what he'll say, or what he'll do. Nothing terrifies him as much as that.


	63. 63: Food

**Title**: Food**  
>AN**: This is basically chapter 267 of _Time in Seconds, A Thousand Faces, _from Uryuu's perspective. Though this will make sense without reading that, if you're curious I won't mind you reading it.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>Uryuu is aware that his father doesn't eat as much as he should. On Sundays he shuts himself up in his office literally all day, from dawn until long after dusk and Uryuu <em>knows <em>Ryuuken doesn't keep food in there. He doesn't have proof but Uryuu suspects that Ryuuken doesn't eat much more on the days he goes to work. As hard as it is these days to feel anything but nervousness or anger in relation to his father, Uryuu has to be concerned.

At seven, Uryuu is tall enough that he doesn't have any more trouble maneuvering the kitchen countertop, though he still has to get the step-ladder if he wants to get into any of the cabinets over the countertop. The freezer, however, isn't any trouble for him, nor is the microwave.

Those frozen dinners gotten out of the grocery store never taste quite fresh when they're prepared. No matter how hot, how steaming they are, they always taste a littler heavy, a little stale. Uryuu doesn't know if it's this way for everyone or if it's just him and maybe he just tends to think too hard about food. Either way, he isn't exactly what can be called a picky eater—if it's food, it's in the refrigerator and it doesn't smell weird, and Uryuu is hungry enough, he will eat it.

As the microwave hums and a warm smell starts to fill the kitchen, Uryuu waits, back against the counter, for it to get done. The label on the box said '_Ravioli' _. Uryuu's had it before; he likes it well enough, even if it's not his favorite. It's warm and filling; that's enough for him.

A thud comes from down the hall. Uryuu recognizes that sound; Ryuuken's dropped a book again. He tends to do that when tiredness strikes him. It's odd moments like that which prove to Uryuu that his father is human after all, fallibility, the ability to make mistakes or be clumsy. _He must be hungry, _Uryuu thinks, frowning deeply. _He hasn't eaten anything since this morning._

Ryuuken got home unusually early today. Granted, there's not much light left, but that's due more to the roiling, dark gray skies and the subdued spatters of rain than to the time of night; it's only about five forty-five. For a moment, despite everything, Uryuu cherished the hope that he might stop and talk to him, but Ryuuken brushed right past him, going down the hall without ever acknowledging that his son was there.

There comes a sharp beep from the microwave to tell Uryuu that the ravioli is done cooking, and it's at that point that he decides he'll go see if his father wants anything to eat. _He must be hungry, _Uryuu tells himself again, _He must be. _Maybe it's concern for his well-being, maybe it's a desire to be useful or maybe something he can't identify, but Uryuu has convinced himself to do this.

Forgetting to give the container a chance to cool down first, Uryuu opens the microwave door and, steam hitting his face and fogging up his glasses, reaches for the ravioli with his right hand. Immediately, there is a stinging sound in the air and Uryuu bites on his lip to keep from yelping. He jerks his hand back abruptly and after wiping his glasses on his shirt, he can see a shiny, livid red burn on his hand, at the top of his palm and the base of his fingers. Running his hand under cold tap water does no good; it throbs like it has its own heartbeat and screams raw and hard.

Struggling to ignore the pulsating burn, tears pricking at the edge of his eyes, Uryuu waits until the container is a little cooler, gets a fork (he doesn't well think anyone can eat ravioli with chopsticks, at least not neatly), and starts down the hall towards the office.

When he gets there, Uryuu discovers the door unlocked and left slightly ajar. After a moment of apprehension, he pushes it slightly further open with his shoulder and peers inside.

Ryuuken is leaning back in his chair, a book out in the desk, but he's not reading it. Uryuu feels his stomach twist into knots when he sees that his father is holding that picture again. The sudden upshot of irrational resentment soon disappears, but Uryuu hovers in the doorway for what feels like an eternity, wondering whether he shouldn't just go back. Ryuuken's face is unguarded and not nearly as stony as what Uryuu is used to, but rather slackened and preoccupied, and Uryuu catches snatches of things he never wanted to see in his expression.

_You already knew about this. You're used to this. Come on, you're used to this._

Finally, he overcomes his trepidation and clears his throat. "Father?"

Ryuuken's reaction is immediate. The picture frame hits the desk with a sharp clink. He stiffens and Uryuu watches as a thousand masks go back up over his face like shadows. Silence reigns and Ryuuken says nothing, staring at him with his eyes veiled.

His breathing catching just a little, Uryuu edges forward, holding out the black plastic tray. Ryuuken's eyes flicker momentarily to his burnt hand but he remains quiet. "Are you…" Having had his head ducked, Uryuu forces himself to make eye contact with his father; he can already hear the sharp injunction to do so in his mind. "Are you hungry?"

"No."

That's hardly unexpected, even if the knots in Uryuu's stomach tighten and it gets harder to breathe. The child licks his lips and nods. "Okay." It's obvious that his presence here isn't welcomed, so he starts to turn to leave.

Before he can do so, Ryuuken calls after him, his voice strangely dull, but with the imperative note unmistakable. "Uryuu? Eat that in the kitchen."

"Yes, sir."

The kitchen is freezing and Uryuu eats, even if it all tastes like ash in his mouth and makes his stomach ache. Someone has to eat it, he supposes, even if he isn't all that hungry anymore. _I suppose he'll eat something when he's ready. I just wish I could have gotten him to eat. I know he's hungry._


	64. 64: Deteriorating

**Title**: Deteriorating**  
>AN**: You know how I said a couple of chapters ago in the author's note that the ugliness will start soon? Umm, yeah. Stick around for next chapter and watch it get _really _ugly.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>It's an abnormally slow day at the hospital, so slow that Ryuuken actually has time to sit down and breathe for once. <em>A rarity indeed, <em>he thinks, glad that for once there are no car crash victims, no work accident victims around. No pain, no blood, no quickly dying, not today. Soon enough, however, his mind turns to less happy thoughts and his expression clouds.

As has been the case for the last week or so, the weather is clear and mild. A pale, robin's egg blue sky, a few fluffy white clouds that go speeding by, a slight bite to the chilly air but no wind to make it worse. Ryuuken sits on a bench outside, drawing slow, heavy draughts off of a cigarette and knowing someone's going to call him in soon. He pays no attention to his surroundings, picturesque though they might be; instead, he is preoccupied by the thoughts of his own life.

Uryuu has been behaving radically differently lately. Granted, it's been happening for a while, and Ryuuken curses at himself for not having noticed and tried to intervene before now. It's too late to do anything to stop it, he keeps telling himself. But whether or not everything's going to collapse in fire is starting to be a question he asks himself a great deal.

In the past, it was easy not to notice when the child was there. Uryuu is near-silent and very skittish; he takes every measure to make sure his father doesn't notice his presence when they're around each other. There were times when Ryuuken might as well have been alone in the house. It's still easy not to notice him nowadays, but when he does, there's something entirely new in the boy's demeanor.

They speak and Ryuuken can pick up on the rebelliousness in Uryuu's voice, etched into his pale skin. It's been lurking there for a while—a year, maybe two—but now the dragon starts to rear its head and Uryuu isn't bothering to hide it anymore. Flashes of fire in blue eyes, increasing in resentment and defiance, just waiting for the proper impetus.

They actually had a proper argument for the first time yesterday, Uryuu keeping his head up long enough and his voice from cracking to disagree, to verbally disobey. Sure, Uryuu was eventually cowed into silence and retreated to his room for the rest of the night, but that was something new and unpleasant and foreign, yet entirely too familiar.

These aren't like the one-sided arguments Ryuuken had with his own father when he was young. Soken is such a non-confrontational person that he just won't bite when someone tries to argue with him, not unless he's experiencing one of his rare flashes of temper, and even then there's no sharp edge to his anger. He just doesn't have the sort of spirit that allows for grudges or regular bouts of anger.

Uryuu, however, isn't like his grandfather, at least not like this, and he has just as much of a capacity for grudges and cold anger as his father. Ryuuken's just never noticed it before, never seen the glint in his eyes, the sullen set of his lips or the defensive stiffness in his shoulders.

If Uryuu is showing his temper more and more often, then so is Ryuuken, and he has a harder time restraining the full length of his own anger. The child's comments are hitting nerves and every time it's harder to swallow down on the worst of his own irritation and simply tell Uryuu, in that even, authoritative tone, to leave it be and not to argue with him.

Ryuuken draws another draught, closing his eyes and sighing. _It's like living in a powder keg, and someone has a lit match somewhere. Every time when I smell smoke, it's like bile rising in my throat. _He has no idea how to deal with this, but gets the feeling that before long, what he does to deal with it won't be pretty. This is something that he won't be able to ignore anymore.


	65. 65: Slap

**Title**: Slap**  
>AN**: God, I'm gonna catch it for this something awful. Also, this is something I covered in _Break and Control_—one of the long oneshots—but didn't devote a great deal of contemplation to. The oneshot in question is more than a little disturbed and if you're curious about it I wouldn't advise going to read it until you have a bit of time on your hands.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>It only happens once but it doesn't make it any better and it doesn't make it any less an action that completely alters the dynamics of their relationship. Quite the opposite.<p>

The sun is sinking, dull and red, and Uryuu has been caught coming home late again.

"I begin to wonder whether or not you suffer from some sort of short-term memory loss," Ryuuken remarks caustically; never mind that Uryuu likely doesn't know what short-term memory loss _is_. "Considering that we seem to be having this conversation again, I can't think of too many alternative explanations."

Having actually had the appetite for food for once, Ryuuken is putting dishes on the drying rack and turns round to face his son. Uryuu has only been home for about five minutes. He had tried to sneak past Ryuuken but was quickly caught and told to put his backpack down in his room then come back into the kitchen, and this he has done, plainly reluctant to do anything but try and wish himself away. Ryuuken starts to get the feeling that Uryuu is one of those children who constantly wishes he could make himself invisible.

Standing between Ryuuken and the kitchen table, Uryuu's face is apprehensive and quite pale, and Ryuuken can see a touch of defiance there too, starting to grow like a living shadow over his face. It peaks most noticeably in his eyes, which are burning feverishly bright. He doesn't answer to Ryuuken's observations, mouth clamped tightly shut.

Ryuuken goes on, eyes narrowing sternly. "Uryuu, how many times do I have to tell you not to go seeking out your grandfather? There is absolutely no point in trying to render aid to the dead. That is the lot and the station of the Shinigami; it's no business of ours what happens to them, or what Hollows do."

For the longest time possible Uryuu doesn't answer and he just stares up at him with those feverish, unblinking eyes. Unusual of someone who usually has the habit of not making eye contact with his father, Uryuu never takes his eyes off of Ryuuken's face. The effect, Ryuuken is reluctant to admit, is just a touch disturbing, feeling like there are burn marks on his face.

Just as Ryuuken thinks he will have to break the silence again himself, Uryuu's voice croaks into life, not quite even, fluctuating noticeably. "But…" Ryuuken is met with a barely audible whisper "…But why?"

"I just told you." _Why does he insist on making me constantly repeat myself? _"The affairs of the dead are no concern of ours. If a Hollow devours a Plus then—"

"But they go after people who are alive too!" Uryuu interjects, his eyes open wide and oddly panicked.

"And I believe you have been taught not to interrupt those who are speaking to you!" Ryuuken snaps in response, the plate on the drying rack clinking against the glass as it shifts position behind him.

Realizing his misstep, Uryuu ducks his head, face burning as if freshly bruised. He sets his jaw and swallows thickly. "I know you saw it," he mumbles, eyes fixed firmly on the floor. His voice cracks. "I know you did."

To this Ryuuken can only toss his head irritably, resisting the urge to run a hand through his by now mostly gray hair. He glowers down at Uryuu, willing him to just obey for once. "There is nothing that we can do for them in the long run. There will always be more Hollows than there are of us, and even if they are not always attending to their duty with the diligence that they should, it is the Shinigami's problem, not ours. If I can accept this," he says, very deliberately, "then you ought to be able to as well."

This is at its core exemplary of the pattern they have fallen into. Ryuuken can see Uryuu straining to keep from losing his temper entirely and frankly, Ryuuken is doing the same, a headache starting to pound and throb just above his left eye. One starts the argument and the other picks up on it and before long they're snapping at each other, Uryuu's words dull in the damage they cause and Ryuuken's much sharper.

Case in point: Uryuu. Normally, after receiving a dismissal and poorly veiled reprimand like that one, Uryuu would slink away, retreating to his room, conceding defeat even if he didn't say anything to that effect. Not anymore. Uryuu stands his ground and, though he doesn't quite look his father in the eye, he tilts his chin up defiantly.

"Why do you always look at me like that?"

That is not the sort of question Ryuuken expected, and combined with the commingled anger and pain on Uryuu's face, leaves him momentarily unable to respond. They lock eyes and for once it's Ryuuken who has to look away first. Those eyes are painfully familiar but they don't fit the person they belong to; they look older and more tired and far too bright. Not exactly Uryuu's eyes anymore, and Ryuuken wonders, numbly, how exactly this happened.

He regains his voice soon enough and responds, putting up contempt that doesn't have to be faked to hide his momentary shock, "Like what?"

Uryuu shakes slightly at this, eyes going very wide. The silence between the words is murderous. "You look at me like you do at ghosts, like I'm something you want to get rid of." It's impossible to tell how a voice can be so small and so jarringly loud at the same time; Ryuuken can feel the words ringing in his ears, making his pulse race. "Why are you always so angry at me?" Uryuu's voice cracks again on 'angry'.

Ryuuken raises an eyebrow at the frankly foolish question laid to him. "Perhaps it would have something to do with the fact that I am constantly telling you _not _to do something yet you do it anyway?" It's amazing that his voice can sound so coldly, calculatingly calm at the same time that Ryuuken's mind is racing and his temper starting to rise like floodwaters beating against a dam. These questions are coming entirely too close to piercing the skin.

The dying sunlight flashes off of Uryuu's glasses until he tilts his head and makes his eyes all too visible once again. "But you were angry at me even before I started training with Grandfather!" Uryuu exclaims, his voice rising and patches of uneven color appearing on his cheeks. "You always were! Even when I hadn't done anything you were angry at me! I don't understand!" What had been an uneven shout drops to something closer to Uryuu's normal tones, voice shaking and eyes scorching the tile floor, awash with red sunlight like blood. "I just don't."

This is beginning to get breathtakingly surreal and disjointed, even with the blood rushing in Ryuuken's ears—it's like watching two strangers bickering instead of being engaged himself. All the while tension builds up in his limbs, like the urge towards activity, except it's not that. He stares, silent with a searing gaze, waiting for Uryuu's shaking form to spill into speech again.

There isn't too long to wait. Uryuu's eyes snap back up, darkened and roiling, wearing a terrible weight. "Is it because I remind you of her?"

Ryuuken's eyes flash dangerously and if Uryuu were in any state other than the one he finds himself now, desperate, hurting, unable to understand and demanding answers, he would notice and would likely wilt and withdraw as he usually does when glared at like that.

As it is, Uryuu doesn't notice and he goes on to finally say what has been festering on his tongue for what to him must have felt like an eternity. "Is it because I look like Mother?"

A split-second later, Uryuu is stumbling backwards and the kitchen table shakes as he crashes into it. Ryuuken's open, stinging hand falls limp at his side and he is completely numb—the roaring of temper and danger has been replaced with hollow emptiness. Silence rains once more, buzzing and overpowering.

Uryuu stares up at him, pressing his fingers against his already-reddening cheek in disbelief, mouth open, forming a small "o"—how surprised they both look would be frankly comical if it wasn't so appalling. His expression can't be mistaken for anything but one of betrayed shock. Uryuu's eyes are dry and devoid of tears—too stunned for that. He says nothing and the silence left to fill in the gaps speaks volumes.

Instead of either of them saying anything to each other, Uryuu, when he finally gets over the initial shock, just ducks out and walks to his room as fast as he can without running, and Ryuuken lets him go.


	66. 66: People

**Title**: People**  
>AN**: Nothing to report.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>What disturbs him most, Soken decides, as he and Uryuu walks in silence down the sidewalk, is the way Uryuu himself is choosing to handle it. A strange, detached calmness—no, not calm, not quite calm; numb, maybe, but not calm. He is quiet, behaving as though nothing has happened even though Soken can see the proof quite literally all over Uryuu's face. Well, the left side of his face, but that's not the point. He's trying to behave as though everything is fine even though they both know that something has happened.<p>

Uryuu came at the normal time, around four in the afternoon, coughing a little at the dust—that's how Soken knew he was coming to begin with. He came up the driveway (to be honest, Soken isn't even sure why there is a driveway, since no one who's lived in this house has ever owned a car), shifting the backpack on his shoulders. It was only when he got close that Soken saw that Uryuu had a nasty bruise on his left cheek, purple and slightly swollen.

If Uryuu noticed that his grandfather was staring at him in shock, he gave no sign of it. Instead, he stopped in front of the stoop, flashed the hint of an apologetic smile up at him, and asked for something to eat, since he'd forgotten his lunch box that morning, with such a plaintive note in his voice that Soken just ushered him into the house without words.

The child ate in silence, clearly restraining himself from wolfing down the sandwich. When time passed, no words spoken, and Uryuu realized that training was the last thing on Soken's mind, he got out his homework and started to add up simple sums and correct grammatical mistakes laid out for him to spot.

At this point, Soken could only assume that Uryuu had gotten into a fight at school. He was such a quiet, withdrawn, at times timid child and it was easy to mistake these qualities for meekness but Soken knew his grandson well enough to know better: though well-behaved, Uryuu was _not _a meek boy. If he was threatened he could and would defend himself and, following the line of logic that he was, Soken could guess that some child at the school had discovered this the hard way. All told, however, it would be a bit… _unusual _for Uryuu to be getting into a fight, considering he never had before, but Soken supposed it had to happen eventually. Everyone got into a fight at school at least once; Ryuuken had, he had. It was perfectly normal.

Uryuu certainly wasn't acting like it was anything serious; he didn't even acknowledge that it was there, though Soken was sure it had to hurt.

Eventually though, Soken got up from his chair and went to examine the bruise more closely. Apart from it, he realized, Uryuu didn't look like he'd gotten into a fight; no stains or tears in his clothing, no scraped knees, no blood anywhere, not even the slightest hint of soreness in his movements. This provoked some concern, but not nearly as much as Uryuu's reaction.

_Soken is immediately alarmed when he reaches out a hand to touch the bruise on Uryuu's cheek and the child jumps and flinches, eyes going wide and every muscle in his body stiff. He behaves as though burned. This only cements Soken's suspicion that something is wrong here; Uryuu's reaction betrays him, if nothing else. "Hold still, Uryuu," he tells him. "I just want to take a look at it."_

_Plainly reluctant, Uryuu allows him to prod the bruise, but Soken stops when he sees tears starting to prick at his eyes—this is the closest he comes to crying—and the way, knuckles white, Uryuu clenches his knees with his hands. _That's enough, _the old man thinks to himself, and Uryuu relaxes, breathing a barely audible sigh of relief._

"_Uryuu… How did you get this bruise?"_

Uryuu isn't a good liar and knows it so, even if he was mumbling indistinctly and was as succinct as humanly possible, he told him the truth. Just from how uncomfortable and confused he looked, Soken could tell it was the truth; he's always been able to tell when people are lying to him.

That, he supposes, is how he finds himself walking home a child he trains to kill supernatural creatures, yet still makes hold his hand when they cross a busy street. Uryuu has been silent the whole time, though clearly not relaxed, and Soken doesn't attempt to engage him in conversation. He doesn't even dare try to talk to him, and is instead left to his own thoughts.

Arguing? That doesn't surprise him. This does, however, and even if Uryuu doesn't want to think about it, Soken can't think of any provocation great enough in the course of an argument that would justify slapping one's child across the face so hard that it leaves a bruise the next day. Even if he doesn't show it Soken can't help but be angry at that.

"Grandfather?" They both stop and Soken stares down at Uryuu, surprised. The child doesn't call him that much anymore. Whenever he does it's usually for something serious.

He stares up at him with wide eyes, but Uryuu ducks his head a moment later, grimacing and cheeks burning (the bruise is almost black), losing the courage to speak.

Soken forces a smile that doesn't reach his eyes. "What is it?"

This allows Uryuu to speak his bit, with odd, old and heavy eyes. "I don't… I don't understand people," he confesses. For some reason that Soken can't begin to fathom, Uryuu seems to consider this some sort of shameful thing, lip twitching involuntarily before he suppresses the urge.

The old man finds himself staring long and hard at his grandson, trying desperately to see anything at all familiar in that face. Uryuu wilts slightly under his stare, which is admittedly every bit as intense as Ryuuken's can be. When Soken thinks about it, Uryuu holds himself in a manner quite similar to his father—straight-backed and almost inhumanly stiff, like a tiny little soldier at attention, boots polished and clothes immaculately neat, waiting to be inspected. Always on his guard, except it's so much worse now.

"You're seven," Soken answers heavily, reaching out to pat Uryuu's shoulder, and can't help but be a little hurt when Uryuu flinches. "You're not supposed to."

He can only imagine what must be going through Uryuu's mind to make him think that he needs to understand people at all, especially at his age. It hurts even more to realize that he doesn't understand either his son or his grandson at all anymore. They've both become complete strangers to him, and he can't comprehend when it happened.

They continue to walk on in silence.


	67. 67: Eyes

**Title**: Eyes**  
>AN**: Some people just can't admit guilt or wrongdoings.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>It's a muggy, humid evening, the air moist and damp as the underbelly of some woodland rock; all that can be attributed to the periodic, unenthusiastic showers that have watered the grass and the trees to a dull green over the past few weeks. Mercifully, it's not nearly so buggy as it has been. The past few nights have seen skies teeming with mosquitoes and gnats, but this evening they are absent, which is the only reason Ryuuken is standing outside now at all, puffing away on the lone cigarette.<p>

As to how heavily Ryuuken smokes, that's something that tends to vary wildly. He has cycles, times when he smokes quite heavily and times when he barely smokes at all. The interval for heavy smoking has arrived, at least if the fact that this is the third cigarette tonight is any indication.

Ryuuken coughs harshly and puts out the cigarette—the last one for tonight, he tells himself—in the half-full, grimy old ash tray. There are clouds rolling in from the east, a possible sign of rain later, but Ryuuken doesn't bow to the weather and head inside. His thoughts roots him to the spot, eyes glazed and staring into nothing.

Having been getting home a lot earlier than usual lately, Ryuuken was at home early enough today that Uryuu was nowhere to be found. A silent, empty house greeted his eyes and a blast of chilly air hit him, contrasting sharply with the summer heat outside.

After what happened last night, Ryuuken was both angry and, deep down, a little relieved that Uryuu was not there. Angry because, after everything, Uryuu was still disobeying him. Intractable child that he was, Uryuu would likely continue on like he was, even after everything.

There was the small spark of relief, too. It had been hard enough to look at Uryuu that morning—the mark on his face had fully blossomed into a swollen, purplish-black bruise. He was twitchy and flinched at loud noises and barely seemed able to stand being in the same room as his father. Uryuu ate his cereal entirely too quickly, just barely remembered his backpack and walked out of the house without his lunch box. Ryuuken went out on the porch and shouted after him but Uryuu, already well down the street, either didn't hear or was just so eager to get away from him that he wasn't willing to go back, not even for his lunch. If Ryuuken could put off having to go through _that _again, he would.

_Those eyes…_

Uryuu came home late again, predictably, but what was not predicted was that, when he opened the door just after six, he was not alone.

The sticky air is making Ryuuken's shirt collar cling to his neck. Frowning, he tugs at it; Ryuuken has never liked this sort of feeling. The uncomfortable action unearths still more recent memories.

Upon crossing through the front door, Uryuu darted away towards his room without a sound. He perhaps sensed an argument was coming; in the past, no matter how petty the argument, whenever someone started to fight in front of him, Uryuu always vacated the area with due speed. He avoided Ryuuken's gaze and didn't even spare a glance for his grandfather.

True to form, not once did Soken ever raise his voice. He didn't have the temperament for that and he wouldn't have started shouting, not with Uryuu just one room over. He didn't even sound particularly angry, though Ryuuken knew his father well enough to know better. There was disgust enough in his voice to make up for the lack of volume.

"_This is not_ _how I raised you. I did not raise you to use your greater strength against those smaller and weaker than you, let alone your child. There is nothing Uryuu could possibly have said that could justify you raising your hand against him."_

He never had felt the need to shout to get his point across. Soken left as he came, not unruffled but definitely calmer than most would be in such a situation.

His father's words Ryuuken can shake off easily, or at least so Ryuuken would like to think. The old man, though all think him to be too kindly for such things, can weaponize words just as effectively as his son when he wants to.

An old man's words and a child's eyes, wary, fresh in redoubled timidity, just waiting for one false move on his part. Ryuuken can forget neither of them, though he thinks he would be happy if he just developed amnesia for both.

Ryuuken looks up again and can't help but be surprised to realize that the sky is no longer dappled red and dark gold and purple, but satiny black, poked through with stars and a thin sliver of a moon. The last cigarette to be crushed in the ash tray has long since cooled and now, _now _there are any number of insects swarming around the light fixtures on the porch. _How long have I been out here?_

There is no desire in Ryuuken to talk to or face his son at the moment. Given how dark it is outside, Uryuu has probably gone to bed, curled up under the sheets and trying to find sleep in the confines of linen and shadows on the wall, and that serves Ryuuken's interests perfectly. He'll be able to see those eyes all night long anyway, and he starts to wonder just how long it will take to make them go away.


	68. 68: Nagasaki

**Title**: Nagasaki**  
>AN**: To those who have read _Battle Scars, _this scene should sound a bit familiar to you. Also, I didn't really feel the need to outline the whole discussion. You can probably guess what they end up talking about if you know even the slightest thing about what happened to Japan in World War II.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>The weather is ideal, though Uryuu doesn't really notice that. He doesn't pay much attention to the weather anymore, unless it's raining or too cold for his liking. One moment is spared to the thought that he wishes it could be like this all year, so there would never be a need for thick coats or globs of sunscreen, that it could be seventy-five degrees all year round. Just one moment though.<p>

Uryuu is more concerned with the sight before his eyes.

Soken's sleeves are rolled back to the elbow and Uryuu can see a slightly raised mark that creeps up his arm like the progress of a particularly persistent vine. It looks rather like the burn Uryuu got once when he burned his hand, but much, much older, and his burn mark hadn't left a scar.

Eventually, Uryuu, sitting on the stoop beside his grandfather, gets curious, and reaches over to touch the odd mark on his arm. It takes a while to overcome his apprehension. Uryuu has developed a veritable hatred of physical contact. He doesn't like being touched or having to touch someone else; he can barely even stand being brushed up against in a crowd, or being in a crowd at all. There is a barrier for personal space that Uryuu would like to keep up if he could. However, it's not an ideal world.

This, unfortunately, has come to apply even to his grandfather. Uryuu tries to hide it because he knows it hurts his feelings, but his skin still crawls and there's no denying the now-pervasive discomfort that coming into contact with another human being provokes. Even knowing he's perfectly safe, it's just… It's just hard.

"Ah… Noticed that, have you?" Soken reaches over and grasps Uryuu's hand in his own, guiding it away from the odd marks but not letting go. His palm is warm and a bit sweaty; Uryuu grits his teeth and resists the urge to yank his hand away. He knows Soken would let go if he asked him to, but he can't quite find the voice to do so.

Uryuu nods gingerly, eyes fixed firmly on the grass. "What is it?" he asks quietly

Soken sighs. "Just a burn scar. I got it in Nagasaki back when I was a teenager." At this, Uryuu frowns curiously. He doesn't think he's ever heard about this before. His grandfather sighs again, more heavily. "It's probably not something you need to be hearing about."

Well, this just cements Uryuu's desire to know what he's talking about. Either Soken doesn't realize or he's just forgotten, but nothing is guaranteed to pique Uryuu's curiosity like the sentence "Probably not something you need to be hearing about." His eyes snap to Soken's face. "Please?"

Uryuu has plenty of time for a story. Ryuuken's days of coming home from work earlier than usual are far over; if anything, he's coming home later now. The child can't rightly complain; he doesn't really _want _to see all that much of his father anymore. In spite of himself, however, there are still some nights when Uryuu sits up waiting for him, staring out the window whether it is clear or obscured by sheets of rain. For the most part he ends up going to bed long before Ryuuken ever gets home, but when he doesn't and settles for falling asleep on the couch, he's worked out a system to see if Ryuuken noticed he's there. Uryuu deliberately leaves his glasses on when he goes to sleep on the couch, and if he wakes up the next morning and his glasses are sitting on the coffee table, he was noticed; it never fails.

For a moment, Soken looks floored with this line of inquiry, and frankly looks like he's going to refuse his request. But Uryuu doesn't have those big blue eyes of his for nothing, and Soken bites back another sigh and relents. He doesn't look entirely sold on the idea, though.

"Alright." His grip around Uryuu's hand tightens (something Uryuu finds even less comfortable than someone holding his hand to begin with) and he winces against the afternoon sun. "First though, Uryuu, tell me what you know about World War II…"


	69. 69: Salvage

**Title**: Salvage**  
>AN**: To **DeucesWild93: **You think that's bad? Ryuuken would probably stop if he ever knew Uryuu was doing it on purpose.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>It's bad, Soken decides, it's very, very bad, when all he can do is attempt to soften Uryuu's attitudes towards his father for the boy's own welfare. This is the sign, he's afraid, that the situation is beyond saving and that all he's doing is grasping at smoke, but he'll still try. He won't be around forever and eventually, perhaps sooner than Soken would like, it's going to be just Uryuu and Ryuuken, and when that day comes…<p>

Well, Soken doesn't like to think about that at all.

Uryuu shivers slightly in the November cold, flinching as a stiff wind cuts straight through him. He just turned eight a week ago. Given that, due to one of the many peculiarities concerning their people's culture (Soken thinks this particular one may have to do with the near-guaranteed poverty of any given Quincy, combined with the fact that their lifespan tends to be so short), Quincy don't celebrate birthdays, this is not a particularly notable thing. Uryuu doesn't look any different from when he was seven and that he's alive at all, Soken can't help but think, is something far more noteworthy than the fact that he is newly eight. Having never celebrated his birthday before, Uryuu doesn't seem to care much either, anyway. To him, his birthday is just another day.

It's just a guess, but Soken thinks this will be another winter without snow. In contrast to the summer this autumn has just been so dry, the leaves dropping early because they were so parched. The sharp wind is bone-dry, making it arguably worse than it would be if it had some humidity.

Training is over and done with for the day. Uryuu zips up his gray jacket and, having had to take his gloves, gray like his jacket, off for training, eagerly pulls the soft, knitted fabric back over his chapped, scraped, noticeably blue fingers. To Soken's eyes, Uryuu looks not quite all-there in his gray clothes. He looks incredibly flimsy and translucent, slightly hazy, like he's a ghost already. Soken doesn't like that thought either, doesn't like how pale and sallow and washed-out he looks. This isn't just frail health and coming winter, and that he likes even less.

"Don't be angry with him."

They've been talking again, talking, predictably, about Ryuuken. Over half of Soken and Uryuu's conversations these days are guaranteed to be about him, what little Uryuu can be persuaded to say about him, anyway. Anything Uryuu says about his father has to be dragged from his mouth, painstakingly so. It's always accompanied by one of two things. One is tears, or at least the emotions that lead Uryuu dangerously close to crying, face crumpling like paper balled up and thrown away. Two is resentment, something that is starting to mutate and metastasize into what Soken fears may be bitterness.

Today, the bite in Uryuu's voice was unmistakable, even if his voice itself was barely audible. _"He's always talking like that," Uryuu murmurs, eyes fixed firmly on the ground, "Always looking at me like that. I know why now—and that's what makes it worse."_

Soken doesn't know exactly what Uryuu means by that. He's not sure he wants to.

"Don't be angry with him." Uryuu looks up, perplexed, when his grandfather speaks. His brow drawn up, the expression the boy wears of someone who thinks he knows what his grandfather is talking about and wishes he didn't.

In the past, this would be the moment where Soken would put his hands on Uryuu's shoulders to make sure he had his attention, some attempt to comfort him, but he can't do that anymore. Uryuu has become keenly wary and nervous of physical contact of any kind. It cuts deeply to see him flinch and behave as though he expects some sort of attack, but Soken knows he can't change it any more than he can keep the seasons from changing and them both from getting so much older.

"I know it's hard." Uryuu swallows with difficulty, but never takes his eyes off his face. "I know it's so very, _very_ hard." Soken does, and these days even he has trouble not being angry with Ryuuken. "But it will be easier for you, if you just try. Because when I'm gone—" Fear flits over Uryuu's small face and never leaves his eyes; Soken feels older and heavier than he thinks he ever has before when he looks at that face "—he will be all you have left."

Just from the face Uryuu pulls, Soken can tell he doesn't much like the sound of that. Soken starts to walk him back, out of the frost-bitten woods and towards civilization, but far from showing relief to be back among familiar buildings as most humans would, he seems far less comfortable on the roads than he did among the quiet trees, the dead, drooping grass and the frost-encrusted leaves that crunched under his feet.

In retrospect, Soken knows that what he said to Uryuu was crueler than what was needed. The truth is not kind, but usually he's been able to soften his words a little. _It's the weather, _Soken decides with more than a hint of gloom. _It's got to be the weather. That and I'm getting morbid in my old age._

Uryuu sneaks glances at him the whole way back. Thin black brows drawn up, skin taut like stockings over skin, stretched and strained. He is washed-out and faded in his gray jacket and gray gloves, and the way his hand twitches, Soken gets the impression that he'd like to reach out and grab his hand, but just can't quite work up the nerve. The whole time, Uryuu is looking at him, casting furtive glances, like he expects Soken to vanish before his eyes at any moment.

It's all he can do, to temper what resentment there is and salvage what wreckage he can. Soken knows that he won't be around forever, and he knows that it's all he can do anymore.

He gave up the chance to do more a long time ago.


	70. 70: Math

**Title**: Math**  
>AN**: Before, I was operating on the system of having a few chapters up early so I would be able to upload one a day on a regular basis. From now on though I'm just going to be uploading them as I finish them, so updates may get a bit sporadic or a bit heavy from now on.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>"Sensei…" For a moment, Uryuu hesitates, biting his lip and looking away. Then, he nods, and Soken can almost see Uryuu in the act of swallowing his pride with that one gesture. "Will you help me with this?" He smoothes the paper down with one hand for emphasis.<p>

Soken smiles faintly and pulls his chair up beside Uryuu's. "I'll try." He coughs thickly, wincing at the pain in his chest. "You'll have to forgive me if I'm a bit rusty, though; it's been a very long time since I've had a need for math."

Still recovering from a particularly nasty bout with flu, Soken doesn't really feel like going anywhere and knows he isn't up to the task of imparting further instruction upon Uryuu. In fact, this is the first day since he first fell ill that Soken has allowed his grandson into the house; he's finally gotten past the infectious stage.

Ryuuken once again insisted on paying for his antibiotics and covering the hospital bill, would not take no for an answer and did it with all the grace of a street brawler, and an angry one at that. Ryuuken knew Soken was sick and, for all that he was ever distancing himself from his son, he never would have forgiven him if he got Uryuu sick. After seeing what Uryuu had looked like after _his _bout with flu, Soken probably never would have forgiven himself either, so he sent him away every day up until this one.

Uryuu looks troubled with the sound of his grandfather coughing, but shakes it off and points out the offending question, the one at the very top of the page.

In block sans-serif font, _What is the product of 12 x 3? _stands out starkly, the third from the top of the page. Uryuu skipped it and went on and did all of the more simple problems, where the numbers he was asked to multiply were both relatively small single digits; he's not just going to let one tricky question keep him from solving the rest.

_Now this… This does bring back memories._

Isono had taught at the local elementary school, back when she was still alive and the school in question existed at all—it was condemned and torn down some ten years ago. In particular she had taught the third grade, occasionally covering for teachers of lower grades when they were out sick or stuck in meetings. It had not been an uncommon occurrence for, when her students had problems with their work, especially with math, to simply follow her and Ryuuken home to get help on their homework.

For all that she was a no-nonsense, on occasion quite stern woman (Ryuuken had to get it from somewhere), Isono put up with her students' at times extended presence in her home with remarkable good grace. Soken would watch from the kitchen, undeniably amused as Isono and Ryuuken filed in, a good half-dozen children following after them. They would always pack into the small living area, settling on the floor as Isono took charge of the situation with the sort of professionalism that Soken had no doubt she exerted with the same degree of skill in the classroom.

With his cut-and-dry, logical mind, Ryuuken never had much trouble with math. The numbers all made perfect sense to him and he would breeze through math homework, quizzes and tests with a sort of detached disinterest. Still, even knowing as she did that her son had no trouble, Isono would, if she caught Ryuuken losing focus on what she was saying, frown and lean over to tap his shoulder.

"_This is for your ears too, Ryuuken. It's not always going to come to you so easily; you may as well listen."_

Ryuuken, for himself, took it with much better grace than he would have had it been Soken saying these things to him. If he was ever even slightly embarrassed about the fact that his third grade teacher was also his mother, he gave no sign of it and he continued on in silence, absorbing her words and sitting at her left hand side, instead of sitting in front of her with his classmates.

A woman surrounded by children, long black hair brushed back behind her ears, commanding the scene and tapping the end of her pencil against a clipboard. In summer all the windows would be opened; in winter the lot of them would be huddled around the radiator. That's the easiest thing to remember.

As Isono had always insisted, schoolwork came before training, once Ryuuken got to be old enough for that, and Soken had been willing to give ground to her wishes on that one. He had never finished secondary education himself—there had been a need for income that couldn't be sustained by continuing to go to school—and Ryuuken was a bright child; there was no reason, at least none based on academics (the financial realities were another matter entirely), why he shouldn't be able to go to college.

_He was so much less bitter in those days._

Uryuu looks up at him, waiting for Soken to say something. _A bright child, just like his father. _Soken sighs and decides that in future, he probably doesn't need to be thinking too closely about Isono when he's sick—though the thought of her has long since lost the power to send screaming pain, it still makes him morose now, and Soken can only assume that's because he's still so sick.

_I remember what she said to do for this. _The old man smiles down at him. "This should be very simple, Uryuu. I'm sure I can help you."


	71. 71: Old

**Title**: Old**  
>AN**: You can probably guess what's going to happen soon.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>Upon picking up the faint but instantly recognizable copper tang, it doesn't take long for Uryuu to spot the crimson smear no his grandfather's right sleeve cuff. He thought it seemed like there was something wrong with the old man today; he could barely get through an hour's worth of training before admitting defeat and slumping back against a tree trunk.<p>

It's a dry but not intemperate May afternoon, no wind whatsoever with the cicadas striking up a formidable chorus in the unseen places. In a position Uryuu has found himself in more than once, he is standing front of his grandfather, staring down at him and frowning.

"Are you hurt?" Uryuu asks quietly, looking Soken up and down with increasing concern. Granted, he's often worn out after a couple of hours, but not usually this quickly or so profoundly. His breathing is ragged, labored, too much so to simply be the result of fatigue. A bit red in the face and moving as though sore, there's also that smear on his sleeve that Uryuu is sure is blood.

True to form, Soken is too honest to hide the truth. He smiles ruefully and nods. "Yes, I'm afraid I am."

A niggling suspicion worms its way into Uryuu's mind. "I didn't hurt you, did I? I was extra careful this time; I—"

"It wasn't you." Soken cuts him off tiredly, holding up a hand. "I assure you, it was not you." Uryuu stands, stiff-backed and silent, and Soken shakes his head and pats the ground beside him. "Sit down, Uryuu."

Somewhat reluctantly, Uryuu does as he is told, holding himself a bit apart from his grandfather and fidgeting uncomfortably with his shirt hem. There's a thread loose on the hem, hanging an inch from the shirt; it's been bothering him all day and the moment Uryuu gets to a pair of scissors he's going to cut it off. Uryuu glances sidelong at his grandfather, works up his nerve and ventures to ask, "How'd you get hurt?"

Given the expression of chagrin that momentarily flits over Soken's heavily lined face, this may not have been the right question to ask, but he just sighs and leans back further into the tree trunk. "I didn't move quite quickly enough, I suppose, and I overestimated by ability to evade. Age will do that to you."

With that, Uryuu knows exactly how Soken got to be sore and tired with a bloody sleeve cuff, and something his father said the other day comes back to him, in spite of himself.

"_Those who deny the limitations of their bodies are fools; they continue on as they are at their own peril."_

Uryuu knows how Ryuuken would respond to Soken's remarks about his injuries. He would say that Soken has gotten too old to be hunting Hollows and that he ought not do so in the first place, since that's the lot of the Shinigami and trying to help the dead is just chasing a pipe dream. He would say that this is foolish. He would say that the only way this can end for Soken is with his death. In all honesty, Uryuu isn't sure that it's a good thing that he can so readily discern what his father's views would be.

For himself, the old man's admission is both alarming and incites curiosity. Hands clasped tightly in his lap, Uryuu keeps his eyes trained on his grandfather's face, knowing that if Soken is anything like himself today, there will be rambling and still more to come.

"Uryuu…" Sure enough, Soken looks over at him with a strangely sad look in his eyes. "Promise me that when you get hut in the process of slaying Hollows, you will, if you can't effectively treat your wounds by yourself, that you will go to someone to seek treatment."

_What's this about? _"I won't get hurt," Uryuu proclaims, not without a touch of pride.

The laughter that follows has Uryuu's face tingeing red defensively. "You say that now, but you will get hurt, Uryuu. Trust me, you will. You'll get scrapes and scars and if you're like me and you get a leg wound but you're too poor and too proud to go to the hospital, you'll end up limping for the rest of your life as well." He claps the leg in question for emphasis.

"Your grandmother—" Uryuu perks up, interest piqued; Soken _never _talks about Uryuu's grandmother "—who was undoubtedly a far more intelligent human being than I, often pointed out the need for me to go to the hospital after getting hurt. At length." There is a noticeable wry note in Soken's voice, even with the fond gleam in his eyes. "We were always short on money and we had no medical insurance, so I would refuse, even at the risk of incurring her not-inconsiderable disapproval."

For someone who has been curious about his extended family for as long as he can remember, and has also had his curiosity rebuffed for as long as he can remember, this is undoubtedly a big moment. Not just a big moment, a huge moment; a reluctant-cracked-smile-worthy moment However, Uryuu can't help but be a little taken aback. Of all the things he expected to hear about his grandmother when Soken finally proved ready to talk about her, he didn't think _this_ would be the first thing he learned.

Now burning with curiosity, Uryuu would ask more, but one look at his grandfather's face tells him that this door has been shut. Soken's not going to be talking any more about his family today. Oh well. Uryuu can always ask him some time later. He has all the time in the world, after all.

Soken puts a hand on Uryuu's shoulder and he flinches, but the old man does not let go. "Uryuu, please just promise me that when you are hurt, you'll seek help for your wounds."

Just to make him happy, still not really understanding what this is all about, Uryuu nods seriously. "I will."

Then, Soken's eyes glaze over. With a twitch of the lip he says the oddest thing. "When did you get so old?" he murmurs, his grip on Uryuu's shoulder tightening as if he expects him to get up and run away.

Uryuu swallows hard and looks away. He doesn't know how to answer that question, and frankly he could ask the same of him—he doesn't think he's ever seen his grandfather look so old as he does now.

_When did he start to look so tired? _Fighting the urge to flinch and balk, Uryuu reaches over and clutches his grandfather's hand silently. Soken's only response is to squeeze his fingers gently—no words.


	72. 72: Unfinished

**Title**: Unfinished**  
>AN**: Nothing much to say. Had a bit of a hard time writing this, I will admit.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>A romanticized view of death and dying is that it doesn't hurt much, perhaps even not at all. If following that line of logic, one must assume that death is merely a transition, and that all sensation flees from the body in the moments leading up to death. One must assume that the process of dying robs the body of pain in its final moments.<p>

Ishida Soken can only assume that this take on death was conceived by one who never had to face it himself. The reality is quite different from what the romantics purport.

In the end, age and his own frail, limited body are Soken's undoing. That and his pride—if he'd been able to overlook it for a moment he would have seen that the Hollow was beyond his capacity, in the tired, weakened state he found himself in. If he had had a little less pride and a little more common sense, there's a good chance Soken wouldn't find himself where he is now.

However, he probably would anyway, all things considered.

As a Quincy ages (if they even live long enough to age at all), however proficient they were at hirenkyaku in their youth their skill with it tends to decline. As bones become brittle and joints start to ache and lock and tear, it's just impossible to perform hirenkyaku as well as one in their prime could.

That, Soken supposes, is why Ransoutengai was devised in the first place. Along with hirenkyaku, Ransoutengai is the only advanced technique of the Quincy people to predate the war with the Shinigami. If Soken could perform Ransoutengai then he would be able to escape easily. With Ransoutengai, enough manipulation of the spirit particles in the air would make wounds and broken bones a minor annoyance at most—even a spinal injury would prove to be but a trifling obstacle. However, the technique is so ridiculously over-complicated that Soken has never even gotten past the theory. It's too complex, and there are severe consequences wrought upon the body is performed incorrectly; this, Soken learned to his cost.

The same as Ransoutengai, hirenkyaku can badly injure the user if not performed correctly (There's a reason neither techniques are taught to small children). Soken knows that, even if he was able to get away from the Hollow, he wouldn't be able to muster the concentration necessary to use hirenkyaku to get away. And even if he could, there is still something that would prevent him from doing so.

Uryuu's still here.

Huge teeth ripping into flesh provokes almost animalistic screams of pain—_funny; he's been gashed and lacerated and bitten so many times before but it's never hurt so much as it does now and he can't help but howl_—and Soken doesn't dare turn his eyes to where he knows Uryuu is hiding, cowering behind a tree trunk. If he calls for Uryuu to run it might give away his presence, and if he looks over at him…

…If Soken looks at him, he knows it will break them both entirely.

_When will this be over? _All Soken can smell is blood, his own blood, and even though he knows that this can't have been going on for more than a minute, eternities have passed since he was knocked to the ground, dazed, and the Hollow, acting on instinct and a terrible hunger, descended upon him. Eternities stretch out before him, eternities before he is allowed to die.

The mind wanders and, even among the howls and all the blood spilling onto the grass, Soken finds himself remembering, so far back.

He knows there will be no one coming to help him. The ranks of the Shinigami are worn thin attending to the dead of the world and Soken would not be the first they've come too late to save, or not at all.

_In letters written to home during the war, Soken's father would talk about peering through the fog and the smoke after the fighting had died down. If he narrowed his eyes and held very still, and ignored the reek of blood and smoke and chemicals, he would see shadows in the smoke, forms that no one else could see. The spirits of dead soldiers, roaming the ruined landscape, and the Shinigami coming to send them on their way._

_Soken had read the words, but he didn't really understand what his father had meant until the bomb was dropped on Nagasaki._

_He had spent the whole day pushing aside rubble and coughing spasmodically, shouting, ignoring the pain from his burns, trying to find his mother and watching as forms drifted through the haze of smoke, things only he could see. Spirits and Hollows and finally the Shinigami, trying in vain to give passage to the dead and purify the Hollows. They were there for weeks on end, rendering assistance to the over seventy thousand dead. Soken didn't even bother trying to pretend he couldn't see them or that he didn't know who and what they were; the Shinigami, as he correctly predicted, had too much on their plates to deal with one teenaged Quincy._

_There were so many, and no one could do anything but wait, in stunned, silent shock for the next wave to come._

Isono had always said that he put too much strain upon himself, that no good would come of going back to fight Hollows before the wounds he had sustained in the previous bout had healed. Even if she knew little of that world—she had not been spiritually sensitive and never showed much desire to be such—she knew common sense and knew Soken wasn't always in possession of it.

_At least she wasn't totally unbearable when she was proved right. Isono had always gritted her teeth at the sight of blood and told Soken, straight through those gritted teeth, not to wake Ryuuken up as she went to get antiseptic and bandages from the bathroom—given that Soken refused to go to the hospital, she had started to gather some medical supplies herself. Personally, Soken knew Ryuuken to be unfazed by such things as the sight of his father bleeding at the kitchen table as his mother patched him up, but didn't say so. Isono's way of dealing with worry and fear was usually to get cross with the one she was worried about. Otherwise her composure would have crumbled entirely.  
><em>

Ryuuken to this day says the same, though with contempt rather than concern.

"_Old man, I know exactly how and why you are going to die. You're going to die in a Hollow's maw because you couldn't tell the difference between a fight you could win and one you couldn't."_

He was right, of course. Ryuuken has an uncanny knack of being right about things like that.

Soken does and doesn't know what happened to his son, does and doesn't know how he became a stranger to him.

_After Isono died, when Soken came to the hospital the doctors told him, wary looks in their eyes, casting them at the boy sitting, mute with grief in a chair, that he had at one point started to scream at the air, sob and beg. They thought it to be a sign of madness born of grief. Soken knew better._

Bitterness and miscommunication, Soken's non-combative nature combined with Ryuuken's misanthropic nature. A toxic combination, to be sure. Ryuuken was always pushing him away, spitting hatred and contempt and showing nothing resembling respect or consideration for his father. Soken will always wonder if he could have done more.

He knows he didn't do enough for Uryuu, at least.

Uryuu is just several feet away from him and the Hollow, and Soken would do anything to put worlds of distance between the child and harm. He still doesn't look over at him and he can't imagine what must be going through Uryuu's mind right now. He doesn't want to.

_It bothers Soken, always has, to see how dependent Uryuu is on him for emotional support. Even when the boy can't stand contact with another human being he still clings to his grandfather and teacher. Smiles only for him, shows any hint of happiness only for him. It's not healthy, Soken knows it's not, but he can never quite bring himself to do something to correct the behavior. As has been pointed out by both his wife and his son, he's too soft-hearted for his own good._

Soken doesn't want to go. He really doesn't. There is a child held dear and things still left to finish. He is sixty-nine years old, far longer-lived than most Quincy can claim, but there is still so much unfinished and Soken is too enamored of life and living, even if he does accept death as natural.

Over gnashing teeth and thick, sickening gulps there comes the sound of whimpering to Soken's right. Very faint, nearly inaudible, but it jars on his ears and it's reality, far more so than even his blood spilling everywhere.

_But what of him? What becomes of the child? What becomes of my grandson?_

The only thing that can even remotely resemble a comforting thought is such that when Soken dies, he'll go find his wife in Soul Society, if she's there and she hasn't already been reborn in the living world, and they can talk, really talk for the first time in decades.

It's only a small comfort, and not enough to block out overwhelming grief and pain.

_It hurts so much…_

_Ahh, if only I was a bit younger…_

_I never meant to make him witness this. I never wanted him to see this._

This is reality: an old man whose blood flees his body and paints the grass scarlet and drenches the dry earth beneath him. The Hollow eats its fill and turns and runs, off to find a new victim; its hunger returns as soon as it swallows the last down. A child cries and cries and cries, wishing someone would come.

Death is not painless, and it does far more than hurt simply the one who experiences it.


	73. 73: Nothing

**Title**: Nothing**  
>AN**: **Haddrell**: Since you've disabled your PM function, I can't do review replies for you, so I'll just talk to you through here. As far as I can tell, a Quincy can go up in Soul Society—I don't see how Mayuri would have gotten his hands on Soken and so many others otherwise. I'm not even sure if a Shinigami _can _deny a spirit entry to Soul Society (they might consider it unethical or something) regardless of their past, unless their sins are so great that they end up going to Hell.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>If it had all happened "so fast", as others claim it does, then Uryuu knows it wouldn't be any better. The images would still be burned beneath his eyelids and impossible to expunge from memory. He would still go to bed every night for over a week afterwards with the smell of blood in nostrils and screams in his ears, turning his stomach. He still wouldn't have an appetite for days and all the blood and the crumpled form, too small, on the grass, will be all he sees when he closes his eyes…<p>

It's not over quickly, at least not to Uryuu's perception. It feels like it will never end, this bloody nightmare of gore and terror and cold sweat mingling with tears. Wondering if he'll always exist in this locked moment, it feels as though an eon has already passed.

Memories up to this point are disjointed and fragmented. A Hollow's roar, far too close for comfort. Then, the appearance of an elongated white head with horrible keen eyes through the branches and leaves. A long muzzle pushes aside the boughs, sniffing out prey. Its mouth is ghastly, so many rows of sharp, gleaming yellowish teeth. Soken stiffens and tells Uryuu to go hide behind a tree, and there is no arguing with that tone of voice. _I never knew he could sound so hard._

"_I'll be done here in a minute. Don't worry, Uryuu; I'll be right back."_

Except he's not.

"_Everything will be just fine."_

_Let someone come. Please let someone come. Someone, anyone. Why won't someone come? _Soken has always spoken about the Shinigami, of how they fight Hollows the same as the Quincy. _The Shinigami are supposed to fight Hollows too, so why aren't they here? _Uryuu wonders desperately, unable to tears his eyes away from the unfolding carnage. _Why won't _someone _come?_

_Please…_

Uryuu keeps expecting, no, praying, that his grandfather will get up and be alright, that he'll get up, fight the Hollow off and it will be just like any other day. He keeps praying that everything will be alright, that everything will be fine, just as the old man promised. But it's not. Soken doesn't get up, the Hollow continues to rip and tear into flesh, and it's not alright.

Soken doesn't move, and Uryuu can't.

_Come on, move, do something. _It's not his grandfather he's begging anymore, but himself. Uryuu knows that doing something, anything, from firing an arrow to throwing a rock to shouting to get the thing's attention, would distract the Hollow and maybe give Soken a chance to get away. He could do something to help, could maybe even kill the Hollow if he tried hard enough; it's not like it's one of those huge, ten-foot-tall Hollows that could take down an elephant.

_You have to move. You have to help him. He's going to… He's going to…_

But he doesn't. Even knowing he could help, even knowing what's going to happen to his grandfather if he doesn't do something, Uryuu doesn't move. His feet are rooted to the ground, his limbs locked and heavy as lead. Uryuu's watching his grandfather get torn apart right in front of him. He's too horrified to scream, too shocked to cry. White-faced, eyes huge, hands shaking on the tree trunk, he cowers, on his knees, waiting and praying for it all to stop.

_Please let it be over soon._

The silence that follows when it is over is more terrible than anything Uryuu has ever experienced before, and he can feel the hands, invisible to the naked eye, closing around his throat.

"Sensei?" he chokes out, finally getting to his feet and starting to creep out from behind the tree. No response. "Grandfather?" Uryuu tries again, voice trembling and cracking.

Only silence greets him.

The Hollow has moved on, looking for more hapless souls to set upon. It is a creature of instincts and insatiable hunger; it does not stop for one moment to think about its deeds. It also is too absorbed with the desperation to feed to realize that there was another there.

Whether this is a mercy is difficult to say.

The sweltering heat is suffocating, unforgiving. It presses ruthless, implacable hands on Uryuu's back and shoulders as he steps forward, out from behind the tree and the too-brightly-lit clearing. Everything is so hot and bright. The stench of blood swells in his nostrils and blowflies pester him at his eyes and his ears and his lips, trying to get into his mouth. As he gets closer, Uryuu fights down a wave of nausea, swallowing hard. It's getting so very hard to breathe.

For a moment, he can bring himself to hope. "Grandfather?"

Nothing more but silence. He is inaudible; the pulse is gone.

"Please…"

_Why is it so quiet? _

There is nothing. There is Hell, and there is nothing. And finally, the tears are unlocked.


	74. 74: Again

**Title**: Again**  
>AN**: **Haddrell**: I can't imagine that any Quincy who died during or after the war would actually _want _to become a Shinigami. Maybe the ones who died before the war, but that's it. On this issue, there's so little information that either one of us could be right or maybe neither of us are—it's just too vague.

The reason I can't help but think that Quincy can be admitted to Soul Society is because of something brought up in the Soul Society arc. Mayuri said that the number of Quincy he experimented on numbered around two thousand (Unless I've got the number wrong). Now, as of the Turn Back the Pendulum arc we know that Mayuri has only been a member of the Twelfth Division for a little over a century, and that, assuming that he's Urahara's immediate successor, he's only been the captain of that division for a century. Unless Urahara turned a blind eye to it while Mayuri was his Third Seat (and you never know, he might have), Mayuri's only had as long as he's been captain of the Twelfth to perform those experiments.

We know that as of the start of _Bleach_, the Quincy race has dwindled down to a single family line. Unless there were still a _lot _of Quincy clans still left a hundred years ago or they were simply very big, two thousand dying in a century doesn't sound right (that'd be about twenty a year), since their numbers are implied to have been devastated by the war. Thus, I think Mayuri was also drawing on the Quincy dead in the Soul Society for his experiments. Besides, the whole reason the Shinigami carried out a war of extermination against the Quincy was because they were upsetting the balance. Though certainly not to the same extent, denying at bare minimum two thousand souls entrance into Soul Society wouldn't do much for the balance either.

As for the PM thing—yeah, it turned it off automatically once with me too; took me forever to find where to turn it back on with this new layout. If you go to your account, click the 'Account' tab on the menu on the left side. On the drop down, you'll see 'Settings'. Go there and you'll find the option to enable the PM feature. I don't mind if you keep it disabled, but I hope you'll enable it. I like being able to discuss things with you, but the author's note isn't the place to do it.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>Though he will often question it himself for the rest of his life, the truth is Ryuuken doesn't know why he went there that day. He's certainly grateful that he did, but he will never really know why. This bothers him, as do all questions he can't answer—there is no place for unanswerable questions in his cut-and-dry world of realities.<p>

Ryuuken can't help but be momentarily shocked at the sight before him, almost leaning down to check for a pulse before telling himself to look at those injuries and see all the blood pooled around him and know that there's no way that Soken is still alive. Not in that state. All the blowflies hovering around him, already burrowing into his flesh to lay their eggs, just confirms that belief.

His first thought is a startled, _What? _Then, the bitter, cynical, _Old man, I _knew _you'd end up like this._

This is the scene that his detached, clinical eye observes: Ishida Soken, dead on the grass. There is blood all around, more than Ryuuken thought could come from a human corpse. It stains the grass scarlet, drenches the earth—plants will grow strong and hearty there in the years to come. He is surrounded by swarms of flies, his body so mangled that it is barely recognizable for human. Shreds of flesh are scattered around his body, and it's to his credit that Ryuuken does not feel a wave of nausea upon the sight. It's perhaps not to his credit that he is so numb at the sight instead.

Then, there comes the thought that makes any façade of numbness break entirely.

_Uryuu… He would have been with him. Where is he?_

"Uryuu? Where are you?" Ryuuken's eyes dart around the trees, his breathing starting to hitch. "Are you here? Uryuu?"

_He may have gone home, or to his grandfather's. Or maybe… _Ryuuken squeezes his eyes tightly shut, trying to block out the suddenly indelible sight of a child's mauled body spread out on grass, devoid of all life. _No. Not this, not again. _His glazed blue eyes staring sightlessly towards the sky_—but maybe they're not his eyes, after all. _

_This can't be happening again._

A choked sob, so quiet that it barely registers on Ryuuken's hearing, sounds from behind a tree ten feet away.

The sun is sinking behind the trees and the shadows are long, but there is still enough light that when Ryuuken's eyes spot the shadow that isn't a shadow clinging to the tree, he curses himself, wondering how he could have missed him in the first place.

"Uryuu…" Ryuuken is at his side in a heartbeat, bending down on one knee. Uryuu keeps his face pressed to the tree trunk, eyes screwed shut, and Ryuuken nearly swallows his tongue when he sees smears of blood stiff on Uryuu's clothes and making his hair cling to his cheeks. The reek of blood off of him hits the roof of Ryuuken's mouth like a sledgehammer. "Are you hurt?" he asks urgently, barely able to force the words out.

The child shakes his head, still not looking at Ryuuken, though he has opened his eyes and his father can see them to be bloodshot, red-rimmed, tear-soaked. (_His irises are so very blue._) In fact there's a mess of tears all over his face and his glasses. (_Like melted snow._) "No," Uryuu croaks in a voice raw and ruined with weeping.

Ryuuken can't help but be unsatisfied by this response. He reaches out towards Uryuu and he just shrinks away, shaking. "No," he whimpers, eyes huge with abject terror, "No…"

To this, Ryuuken can only stare at him, having no idea how to undo this day. "I'm not going to hurt you," he says very quietly, willing Uryuu to understand. Uryuu keeps his eyes fixed on him in alarm for what seems an eternity, before he gives some silent sign of relenting, though he is clearly uneasy with the thought of letting his father near. Ryuuken reaches forward and puts a hand under Uryuu's chin, checking his sticky, salty face for any wounds. When there is nothing but blood, Ryuuken prods his ribs instead, ignoring the way Uryuu flinches and checking for breaks. There are no tears in his clothes but there wouldn't necessarily have to be for broken ribs or internal injuries.

There's nothing to suggest that Uryuu is injured at all. _It must all be the old man's blood, _Ryuuken realizes dully. _From Uryuu checking to see if he was still alive. _A vivid image stands before his eyes: a child screaming over an old man's disfigured corpse, sobbing and wailing, pleading with him to get up, to still be alive.

He holds Uryuu's gaze for several moments, no clue what to say. "Uryuu…" Absurdly, Ryuuken almost finds himself telling Uryuu that's he _sorry, _before his tongue knots and he can't get the words out and he remembers that he was right, all the long.

_The old man nearly got him killed._

Uryuu's eyes are swimming with tears again. His lower lip starts to tremble. Then, Ryuuken finds himself with a child sobbing into his chest and clinging to his shirt as the instinctual need to be comforted overcomes Uryuu's sizeable fear of being touched.

When the police come, telling him that they've found a body and think it belongs to his father, Ryuuken will feign surprise. He will not feign grief or pain—that sort of hypocrisy not even he can stomach—but he will pretend to be surprised and he knows just how to be convincing when he does it. He will make sure that Uryuu is far from the police's scrutiny, and when he sees the half-rotted corpse, Ryuuken will nod unaffectedly and say that this is him, uncaring of the way the officer's eyes narrow.

For now, Ryuuken sighs heavily, and pulls off his jacket, draping it around Uryuu's shoulders so that, in the event that they meet anyone on the way back to the car, they won't see all the blood. Uryuu has gotten too big to be carried, but Ryuuken picks him up anyway, and walks away.

There's no reason to stay.


	75. 75: Natural

**Title**: Natural  
><strong>AN**: Nothing to say.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>In the end, he only attends the funeral because it's expected and, even knowing their strained relationship, it would draw suspicion if he didn't. (The police are treating Soken's cause of death as either an animal mauling or homicide. Ryuuken doesn't bother trying to explain what really happened; no one would believe him if he did). On the same note, the only reason he's brought Uryuu along is because it's expected and because… Because, quite frankly, Ryuuken does not feel comfortable leaving Uryuu alone right now, to the extent that he's been taking him with him to work on Saturdays.<p>

(_This soon, will pass, he can't help but believe._)

The viewing at the funeral home—closed casket, of course; no one would have for a moment entertained the notion of doing otherwise—passes by in an at times vague blur. There is a smattering of people there at the funeral home; Ryuuken doesn't recognize any of them. They come up, give their condolences and Ryuuken nods stiffly, gazing over the tops of their heads or, where that fails, straight through them. His hands on Uryuu's shoulders are cruelly tight, and when anyone tries to speak to him Ryuuken glares at them so coldly that they shrink back, lose their nerve. Uryuu rests a small, pale hand still slightly rounded with childish softness on the coffin for several moments, before Ryuuken leads him away. He does not protest; he barely even tries to speak to his father anymore.

He sticks around for the burial for the same reason he attended the funeral in the first place: obligation. The earth is packed tight over the plain pine coffin and Ryuuken sends Uryuu back to sit on a bench outside the funeral home and wait for him there. Uryuu is past all tears, disturbingly silent and still. His eyes are dull and glassy. He does whatever Ryuuken tells him, does it mechanically, no heart in at all.

At almost the exact time Uryuu leaves, someone else arrives, though he doesn't stay long. Standing about twenty feet away, hovering in front of a different grave and almost managing to give the impression that he's there for _that _grave and not the one Ryuuken stands in front of, Urahara manages to catch Ryuuken's eye. Hand braced on the rim of his hat, he nods briefly, and Ryuuken only glowers in response. Urahara gets the message, and cracks the hint of an amused smile before walking off. Ryuuken is anything but amused at his presence.

_He knows that he is not welcome anywhere that I am._

Once Urahara is gone and Ryuuken is sure he's alone, he returns his attention to the small grave in front of him.

Soken had no life insurance to speak of; there's no way he could have afforded it. As a result, Ryuuken found himself shouldering the cost of burying him in full, though, to be honest, it wasn't much of a burden; his salary is such that he can afford to bury his father and the funeral was very simple. Soken wasn't the sort of man who would have settled for anything but simplicity anyways; he wouldn't have minded.

He's been buried to the immediate left of Ryuuken's mother, a new gravestone next to a well-weathered one. _Ishida Soken _and _Ishida Isono, née Shimizu, _their dates of death twenty-four years apart, give or take about a month. Ryuuken knows as soon as he sees the two headstones next to each other that this is how it was always going to end up.

_But why does it always have to end in death?_

Ryuuken remembers when he was twelve, and his father once tried to impress upon him the importance of understanding that death is a perfectly natural process. It was after the training that Ryuuken only submitted to out of a feeling of obligation, and he was exhausted, though not nearly to the extent of his middle-aged father. When Soken said the words, all Ryuuken could hear in his mind was the sound of his mother coughing. (_Isono had, like her husband, been caught in the blast of an atomic bomb, though in Hiroshima, not Nagasaki, and it was starting to tell on her health even then, leaving her pale, weak, often sick. This was only a sign of worse to come._) It made him think that he shouldn't be there, that he should be with her.

Returning to thoughts of the present day, Ryuuken knows he shouldn't linger here too much longer. If he keeps Uryuu waiting too long the child's liable to wander off.

One long glance more is spared for the tombstone. Ryuuken's eyes narrow; he no longer notices the heat.

"_Death is only the next natural step after life."_

_Says the man who chose the world of the dead over that of the living. Says the man who's never struggled to save a living human being, not once._

"How is this natural?" Ryuuken spits bitterly, before turning his heel and heading back towards the shaded stone bench where he knows Uryuu is waiting.

(There will be no further visits.)


	76. 76: Looking

**Title**: Looking**  
>AN**: To **hibari**: Yeah, it's a Quincy thing, at least in my rendering; I probably should have made that more clear. Go to my oneshot _like chasing smoke _if you want more details. Oh, for those who might not know, kanji and katakana are two of the different alphabets used by the Japanese. Kanji is the older of the two systems; katakana is often used for medical terminology. The impression I get is that katakana is a far simpler system of letters than kanji. And as **DeucesWild93** has been so kind as to inform me, hiragana is what they actually use for writing in Japanese instead of just loanwords, which was not mentioned in the article I was reading, so if you're wondering what the reason for the edit is, that's why.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>He honestly doesn't know why he's doing this, and he doesn't know why he keeps the papers instead of just burning them. A lot of the things Ryuuken does these days in regards to his family makes no sense to anyone, including himself. This is just one more of those things that makes no sense. That's the only way Ryuuken can rationalize it.<p>

Setting foot in his father's house after the old man has died isn't something Ryuuken ever thought he would be doing, but he's doing it now.

The house has remained completely untouched in the month since Soken died, a testament to just how forgotten the old man really was—it's apparently rubbed off on his tiny, dilapidated little house too. Ryuuken can imagine how the years will treat it; completely forgotten, gathering dust, until fire or wind or rain brings the foundations crashing in and there's nothing left. This isn't a thought Ryuuken likes as much as others might think he would, because as much as it was Soken's house, for eighteen years it was _his _house too. Memories have a powerful pull, and not all of them were so filled with contempt and bitterness.

Ryuuken adjusts his glasses and erases any trace of sentimentality from his face. This is neither the time nor the place—_there never will be a time or a place for sentimentality again. _He's here for a reason, and will only stay as long as he hasn't found what he's looking for it.

There's a faint film of dust over everything and the moment Ryuuken steps into the house he finds himself trying not to sneeze. Soken was never very good about dusting, especially not in his later years when his arthritis was starting to get the better of him, but it was never this bad when he was alive. Dust catches the light and glitters like stars in the shafts of sunlight seeping through the windows, and Ryuuken ignores all of this to go to the couch, lean down and reach for a large, deep hatbox he knows is waiting for him under the couch.

Lifting the top off of the box, Ryuuken finds what he expected: papers on top of loose papers, with a journal there too, its spine heavily frayed and the pages warped and bent with past water damage. Soken's notes, but not just Soken's, but Ryuuken's grandfather's notes, and the notes of many Quincy before that.

What Ryuuken is looking for out of that is something very specific, and he soon finds what he was looking for specifically out of the mess of papers. The notes on some of the most advanced techniques of their clan and what they picked up from other clans along the way, following the war. The ones Soken never taught him because he left home before he could.

Ryuuken doesn't take all of them. The notes on the techniques he already knows or knows he can't learn—hirenkyaku and Ransoutengai, respectively, among others—he leaves behind, along with the journal. That's more a family history than anything else, along with random and frankly out-of-place facts that would be prime material for a history book, if Quincy had such a thing. Ryuuken can easily spot out his father's handwriting from the rest—thin kanji careful and precise in youth but sloppy as he aged. Ryuuken's always wondered why Soken insisted on writing in kanji, given how much complicated it is than other writing styles, even when his hands were half-ruined from arthritis; Ryuuken mostly writes in the simpler hiragana these days himself (katakana for medical terms), and Uryuu tends to do it too when he's in a hurry.

He has no interest in the papers on the simpler techniques, just like Ryuuken has no interest in the family history, just like he has no interest whatsoever in the photographs packed haphazardly beneath. Honestly, he has no idea what sort of logic gripped Soken's mind to make him think that he needed to keep his notes with the family photos.

Some are relatively new but others are so old that Ryuuken is afraid to touch them at all, sure that if he did so they would crumble to dust in his hands. He doesn't recognize most of the people there. Just his parents, himself, and…

Ryuuken frowns. Uryuu is in some of these pictures too.

Not too many of course; five at most. There's one of Uryuu that Ryuuken recognizes to be from his first day of school; Soken had insisted on pictures for so long that Ryuuken eventually relented just to shut him up. There are two more of Uryuu with his grandfather, one a baby picture and one that can't have been taken more than two years ago; Uryuu probably pestered a passer-by until he agreed to take the camera. There's one of himself and a probably-two-year old Uryuu, one that for the life of him Ryuuken does not remember ever having sat for; Ryuuken hates having his picture taken.

And then, there's one that he never expected to see.

He swallows hard and holds that one picture in particular in his hands. A woman and her newborn baby; she isn't looking up at the camera, her eyes instead fixed on the infant's face. The sterile light of a hospital room brings out the blue highlights in her dark black hair. The slightest suggestion of a smile, so miniscule that it might just be a trick of the harsh light, plays on her lips.

_Where did this come from?_

Eyes clearing, Ryuuken sighs and shakes his head. For a moment he considers leaving it behind too, but in a moment of pure sentimentality he'd forgotten he had, tucks the picture away in his jacket pocket, takes what notes he came for and walks away.

Even having found what he came for, Ryuuken still doesn't know why he came at all. He just gets the feeling that whatever knowledge he can glean from his father's slipshod handwriting will come in handy in future.


	77. 77: Grudge

**Title**: Grudge**  
>AN**: Hi, everyone. I'm going to be a bit busy with schoolwork and oneshot ideas for _Doctor Who _that just won't leave me alone, so I might not be updating for a while. It probably won't be any longer than a week before I update again. Age-inappropriate angst ahead. I hope I managed to put across the origin of Uryuu's grudge against the Shinigami across with some finesse.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>Nowadays, Uryuu usually ignores the sock monkey that sits on his nightstand altogether, but he still clutches it to his chest when he's thinking hard. A floppy little stuffed animal will never be a substitute for human warmth and human arms, but the cedar-smell is comforting—no, wait. It's not comforting. Nothing is anymore, not really. All Uryuu has is reality, and that isn't comforting in the least. The most Uryuu can say is that the smell is familiar; it's not even remotely comforting.<p>

After all, he's the last. The last one left. The last Quincy.

Now, when Uryuu thinks and holds that sock monkey against his chest, so it's throbbing with his heartbeat, he holds it like a buffer against the world, because he doesn't want anyone to be able to see his thoughts, his weakness, his anger. He doesn't want anyone to see _him._

As much as he tries not to (and he _does _try), Uryuu's thoughts when there is nothing else to occupy his hands and mind only go to one place these days. He drags out homework for as long as humanly possible, reads books both his own and his father's as much as he can and occupies himself with the smallest of tasks, but it's not enough. Eventually, Uryuu finds himself with nothing to do, whether it be sitting in the bath, walking to school, lying awake in bed or sitting up on the couch, and there's no escaping his thoughts. Not then.

True to form, Uryuu bottles his emotions; it's how he was raised and a just indelible aspect of his personality. He doesn't live in an environment conducive to expressing his emotions being a safe exercise. To anyone who looks at him (there's no one who knows him, not anymore), he seems to still be dull and numb with shock over his grandfather's death, but the truth is that he is anything but numb. He will be again soon, but not just with grief.

No one made a move to help Soken the day he died, not the Shinigami, and not Uryuu. He was just allowed to die, cut down and savaged like some small animal in the jaws of a wolf (And indeed, even lacking ears there had been something distinctly canine about the Hollow).

Uryuu still replays the images all over in his mind, over and over, whether awake of sleeping (_He prays for dreamless sleep_). Blood all over, roars and screams. The birds flee the trees and fly away, and Uryuu treacherously wishes he could do the same.

All the while, Uryuu is struggling to find the courage to move forward, willing himself to act. One arrow fired, even if it wouldn't have killed the Hollow, could have changed the outcome of that bloody day. If Uryuu had done something, anything at all, his grandfather might still be alive. Of course, he doesn't know, isn't sure, and that's by far the worst of it, that he _doesn't know_. But he'll always wonder, and that is nearly as bad.

He feels like everyone can see guilt written all over him, stark black characters up and down his arms, on his chest, painted on his face. Unmistakable, unavoidable. What he sees in the mirror every time, shifting just beneath the surface of his wan, stretched-too-tight skin. He feels as though the eyes of the whole world are one him, watching and waiting for what he will do. Waiting to see if he'll fail again, if he'll just wither away in his guilt for the rest of his life. Waiting to see if he'll ever do something to try to find absolution.

There's someone else who didn't lift a finger too and Uryuu finds himself doing something he has never done before: harboring a grudge, harboring a grudge against an organization whose face he has never seen, whose people he has never met. Nursing it in secret, seeing no use for it until the day comes when he actually _meets _a Shinigami (and until then he'll act like it isn't there at all, even if it's growing, choking him), Uryuu learns to hate the shadow at the edge of his life. He hates them for doing nothing, for allowing him to be the last, but more than anything else…

More than anything else, Uryuu's cross to bear is not a grudge against the Shinigami. The grudge is nursed and nourished with an empty, aching isolation, corroding his spirit and sickening his heart like a cancer, but it is not the burden at the heart of him. His cross to bear, truly, is the memory of his own weakness, the guilt he tries and fails to wash off his hands. Absolution is not for him, he realizes. Absolution is for the people who know how to seek forgiveness. Absolution is for the people who want to be forgiven. Uryuu is neither.

(_No one will ever tell him that there was nothing he could have done. No one will ever point out that he was just eight years old and that anything he did would have likely ended in his death. Uryuu does not speak of his guilt, and the only ones who ever manage to pick up on it don't know what to say._)

_He was just lying there and I… I couldn't move. I froze up. I just stood there and watched. I didn't… I should have been able to, but I didn't. _Uryuu tightens his grip on the flimsy old sock monkey in his arms and grits his teeth to keep his eyes from burning with tears.

The Shinigami did nothing, but _he, _Uryuu knows, he should have done something.


	78. 78: Watch

**Title**: Watch**  
>AN**: Once again, I am back.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>The oak tree in front of the elementary school holds a peculiar appeal. Its lower boughs are sturdy enough and close enough to the ground that a child with an affinity for heights can use them as a step ladder to reach the higher branches. Oddly enough (or maybe not), the tree is hardly ever climbed by any of the students of the local elementary school. It has more or less become the domain of that one kid. You know; the one who has most of the school and half the teachers convinced he's a mute. That kid.<p>

Uryuu likes the tree. It's big enough to climb on, unlike that one flimsy, little birch tree in his front yard. As for why he likes getting up in that tree as much as he does, Uryuu likes high places for the same reasons a cat does—it provides a good vantage point for knowing what's coming and provides relative safety from threats on the ground. Simple enough.

A sharp wind whistles by and Uryuu winces, holding his jacket closer to him. It's only cold when the wind blows, but that's enough, and he huddles close to the tree trunk, considering climbing down if only because he knows the wind will be just a touch gentler on the ground.

He needs to get home, anyway. Of course, there won't be anyone waiting there for him; there never is. Uryuu doesn't particularly want to come home to an empty house so quiet that the silence echoes off the walls and threatens to choke him into oblivion. Nor does he want to have to walk home in the dark and be subjected to another round of cold chastisement for coming home so late. The former solution ends up being the one he goes with these days; the lesser of two evils.

Ryuuken has, for whatever reason, started to actively avoid him, once again. For the first few weeks after—Uryuu grits his teeth, fingers clenching the material of his gray jacket—after _that_, Ryuuken paid considerably more attention to him than usual, from actually getting home from work before dark to getting Uryuu up at the crack of dawn and dragging him off to work at the hospital on Saturdays. Uryuu isn't sure whether Ryuuken didn't trust him not to snap and burn the house down in the course of some sort of suicidal rampage or if his father was actually _worried _about him, but he hadn't minded the attention. He knew it couldn't last, was waiting from the first day for his father to start acting like his normal self and ignore him again, but on some level Uryuu had enjoyed the attention, and wishes it hadn't stopped as quickly as it had.

_(Ryuuken may think that Uryuu can't see when he looks at him, but Uryuu knows when his father's eyes are on him. Brow slightly furrowed, lips forming a thin line. In these days he rarely lets Uryuu out of his sight, but he only wears that face when he thinks Uryuu's not looking at him—turns out the child's peripheral vision is better than the father thought._

_For a moment, every once in a while, Uryuu is, deep down, glad to be worried about. As soon as he acknowledges that gladness, however, he is ashamed of it and forces any bit of happiness down where he can't feel it. He knows he shouldn't be happy that someone's worried about him, not even a little bit, but eventually there comes a spike of gladness again and the cycle is started all over again._

_Rinse and repeat. One second he's glad to be worried about and the next he's ashamed of even wanting to be glad. It never stops.)_

Everything is status quo—_Except it's not, because Uryuu no longer makes any detours on the way home; there's nowhere else to go anymore. _Uryuu goes home, does his homework, gets a little something to eat and either goes to bed or sits on the couch for a while, waiting for his father to come home. Most of the time Uryuu goes to bed long before there's the light of car lamps on the window, but he still occasionally falls asleep on the couch and wakes up the next morning to find his glasses sitting on the coffee table.

He's living by that structured schedule rigorously nowadays, giving himself no time to fall into inactivity and think about anything else. There is always some sort of activity on hand, be it homework, a book, or tidying up his room (_Immaculate, not a hair out of place, unnaturally clean)_. Uryuu can't be without something to do. Not now. If he is, he ends up thinking again, and threatens to fall apart at the seams. There must always be something.

Another bite of cold wind pierces straight through him and Uryuu flinches. _Time to go home, _he tells himself, and starts the process of inching down the tree. Two stragglers, a child and his mother, pass by, and Uryuu pauses to watch them.

The boy is his own age, give or take a few months; they're likely in the same grade, at least. He has sort of orangey hair and unlike Uryuu, who is small, pale and scrawny, appears healthy and well-grown for his age.

The woman is of average height for a grown woman, maybe a little taller than the norm but Uryuu isn't going to notice that. She's stunningly pretty, with long brown hair. Her son willingly holds her hand and he chatters non-stop to her, animated, eyes bright. It's perhaps for the best they don't notice Uryuu's there; Uryuu doesn't think he'd manage to make it through "Hello" without bolting.

They are gone soon enough, and as soon as the two of them are out of sight Uryuu drops down out of the tree and, adjusting his jacket, he starts to head home himself.

He does wonder, wonder what it would be like, if things were different. How can he not? But Uryuu doesn't dare devote too much thought to the subject. There are enough voices pressing down on him in the confines of a cold, silent house. The last thing he needs or wants is to add another to the mix.

Uryuu doesn't have the sort of heart for "what-ifs" anyway. Not anymore.


	79. 79: Routines

**Title**: Routines**  
>AN**: Nothing much to say.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>Ryuuken is starting to notice his own tendency to throw himself into his work after deaths, even if the one who died was decidedly estranged from him.<p>

He'd still been in school when his mother passed, and after that he would study for tests for hours on end, do his homework and then check the questions, twice, three times or even half a dozen to make sure they were right. His grades, while never anything but excellent, had even for his standards shot up for the first year or so after his mother died.

After Sayuri was killed he practically _buried _himself in his work, to the point that his co-workers started to look at him like he was growing a second head and his father would make a point of remarking on the late time that Ryuuken came to pick up Uryuu if he ever came after seven-thirty at night.

And now he's doing the same thing, despite the fact that the thought of his father dead doesn't surprise him nearly as much as the past deaths around him have been.

"Good night," one of his co-workers calls from down the hall, and Ryuuken lifts a hand to signal that he heard, before returning to the paperwork. The day shift has just ended and by all rights he should be heading home. If he was a little less absorbed in his work, maybe he would.

Or maybe he wouldn't. It's hard to tell.

On first analysis, Ryuuken thinks he's following his already-established pattern of letting his work swallow up what little life he has after someone dies. That's more than a little vexing, since to be perfectly, brutally honest, he didn't think he'd be at all bothered when Soken finally bit the dust. He's been expecting something like this for years, been expecting his father to be killed by a Hollow since he was a teenager. This was just exactly what he's been waiting for, expecting for years now. After the initial shock brought on by the stench of blood, Ryuuken wasn't surprised at all.

He's not grieving at all, he tells himself. There is not even the slightest hint of pain brought on by Soken's death—Ryuuken can think about a buzzing summer's day drenched in blood and be unaffected. That's not a problem.

That's not why he's been burying himself in his work night after night, not coming home until long after dark.

For the first few weeks after Soken died, Ryuuken made sure Uryuu was never far out of sight from him. He did not work overtime at the hospital; he would leave the moment his shift was over. Uryuu didn't particularly seem to appreciate being roused before dawn on Saturdays, but he was strangely passive about his father dragging him off to work with him.

Truth be told, Ryuuken isn't sure why he did that. If he's honest, he admits that it might be because, on some level, he was entertaining the ridiculous thought that if he let Uryuu out of his sight for a second, the child would disappear like everyone else had. _It _was _that, _he realizes with a grimace. _I thought I'd outgrown that childish fear._

On occasion, walking through the hospital or down through the parking garage towards it, Ryuuken would feel the ghost of pressure of much smaller fingers on his. Uryuu trying to work up the nerve to grab his hand and failing every time. Even if his courage hadn't failed him, Ryuuken jerked his hand away without looking down at him. He could not stand that touch.

It hadn't lasted long. For a little while Ryuuken was content to have Uryuu where he could see him at all times (except for the time between Uryuu getting home from school and Ryuuken's shift at the hospital ending), but that streak of what just might have been protectiveness evaporated soon enough. Ryuuken went back to being the way around Uryuu that he had been before Soken died, and with each passing day it got harder to look at him.

Ryuuken has fallen back into his old routine with a vengeance. His pencil scratches against paper, filling out logs, getting up to date on paperwork. Do it all now so he doesn't have to take it home with him. When he does get home, it will be so late that he won't even eat. It will be so late that he'll be so tired that he'll barely make it to the bed before falling asleep. Maybe there will be a child asleep on the couch, his glasses sliding down his nose but still on, and maybe there won't. If Uryuu is asleep on the couch, Ryuuken will lean down and take off his glasses like always, but he won't look at his face.

_That's it._

That's why he's here. It's easier to work himself to exhaustion every day, rather than have to look at his son's face and see everyone else's faces there.


	80. 80: Grades

**Title**: Grades**  
>AN**: Nothing to report.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>Uryuu's grades only ever drop once.<p>

It's been impossible to concentrate lately. No matter how much he tries, he can't concentrate and can't make the problems on the page connect in his mind. It's like staring down and trying to read a different language. Nothing is familiar. Nothing makes sense. He hesitates with his pencil hovering over the paper, making little faint marks on the paper, and finally settles for an answer, even knowing it's incorrect.

Up until now, Uryuu has never had any trouble with his schoolwork. It's been second nature to him; he's been able to breeze right through all of it without incident. It was never a hassle or a burden; Uryuu was engrossed with his schoolwork, first as a means to stave off boredom and then to fight off treacherous thought. He never procrastinated and never failed to make any grade short of acceptable for his own demanding standards.

Now, however, is different.

Today was the first time a teacher ever had occasion to speak to Uryuu personally; in the past they've barely noticed he's there and, to be brutally honest, that's how Uryuu prefers it. She called him up to her desk just after the afternoon bell rang; Uryuu, with perhaps a hint of prescience, only walked up with extreme reluctance, fearing what was about to be said. With a serious look on her face and an air of disapproval that, even if it wasn't there on the surface, was palpable, handed him a slip of paper and told him to give it to his father.

As much as Uryuu would have liked to avoid telling Ryuuken about this, once he took a look at the note himself and became aware of its contents, he knew there was no escaping the inevitable. It would only make things worse to try. If Uryuu held off showing it to his father or hid it altogether he'd only get into trouble with his teacher, and even more with Ryuuken.

Cut to the present. Uryuu stands in front of his father's desk, silent and straight-backed, waiting in trepidation for the response. Ryuuken is taking an agonizingly long time to finish the rather brief note, holding the slip of paper in the air and away from his face. His expression betrays nothing; it's like looking upon impassive stone.

All the while, Uryuu eyes him nervously, resisting the urge to bolt. He doesn't even dare shift his weight from one leg to the other; if he does the desire to retreat will become overpowering. _Why is it taking him so long to read it? _He jams his lips together and clenches his hands into fists, bones burning and blood roiling. On the surface he is just as still as his father, but Uryuu feels as though he's about to tear apart inside.

After the passage of what might be half a minute or an eternity, Ryuuken sighs and puts the paper down on the desk to sign it as the teacher had asked. Painstakingly neat kanji, written out slowly; his name's pretty much the only thing he's guaranteed to write in kanji these days.

Then, he speaks, unbearably calm and cool, eyes unreadable. "I know quite well you can do better than this. Take the paper and go, and do not allow this to happen again. Understand?" Ryuuken's voice never quavers, never rises above a constant, steadily quiet note. The response is much more subdued than Uryuu expected, but that doesn't make it any better; if anything it makes it worse. Disapproval is like flame on his skin.

Face burning and eyes on the ground, Uryuu nods and takes the outstretched slip of paper. Finally able to withdraw, he does so quickly, and when he gets back to his room he pulls out his homework and starts going over the problems again. If there are any mistakes this time he _has _to catch them before he turns the assignment in tomorrow. The same goes for everything from now on.

He has no intention of ever having to take a note home to his father again.


	81. 81: Surrender

**Title**: Surrender**  
>AN**: I wonder if he ever did have thoughts along these lines in canon.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>A familiar roar, accompanied by the telltale screams that follow a second later (<em>horror,<em>_ pain,__ despair;__ it's __all__ there, __a__ mish-mash __of__ emotion__ all__ the __more __monstrous__ for__ its __visceral__ nature_) splits the still night air, and if Uryuu wasn't wide awake, lying on his bed in the dark, he might be able to convince himself that he's just having a nightmare. It wouldn't stop his stomach from seizing and the sensation of being submerged in ice from creeping up his body from his toes to the crown of his head, but it would be something.

Uryuu can imagine the scene. A Hollow, driven by its hunger to consume everything even remotely palatable, has found a hapless victim, be it a Plus or a living human with sufficient spiritual power. Unless they run very fast and manage to evade the Hollow, they will be killed. Uryuu has no faith in the Shinigami to save them; if a Hollow has begun the chase it's almost always too late for its victims.

_Please __let__ it __stop __soon. __Please __let __it __stop. _Uryuu rams a pillow over his head and tries to block out the faint but blood-curdling screams. It doesn't work. The desperate, hopeless cries reach straight through the pillow, just like they always do. Everyone ought to be able to hear it, but it's just Uryuu listening, too frightened to render aid and too ashamed to raise the alarm. No one would listen, anyway.

There are no words, none that Uryuu can recover from memory, to describe the sort of emotions from hearing it happen, all over again.

He's heard the sounds before, of course, so many times that it's become a familiar song to him—the notes are terrible, chilling, but familiar. Uryuu hears it on the way to and from school, on the sidewalks, standing in a grocery store waiting for the cashier to be done, anywhere and everywhere. Never before, however, has Uryuu been able to hear it from his bedroom.

And he doesn't know what to do.

"_You__ don't __have __the __sort __of __nature __that __allows __you __to __overlook __what __you __consider __to __be __an __injustice."_

Uryuu isn't like his father. He can't just close his eyes against the dead and against Hollows. Even if he were to ever close his eyes, he would still be able to hear the wails, smell the blood and the carnage, feel the earth trembling beneath him. Shutting his eyes doesn't make it go away.

The world of the dead is in his blood, just as much as is the urge to destroy the creatures who stalk it. Uryuu is too young to understand the concepts of genetic inheritance and predisposition and the inclination towards self-preservation, but he understands indignation and compassion. No one should ever have to be looking over their shoulder every day of their lives. No one should ever have to find themselves running from a creature only they can see, regardless of whether they're alive or dead. The Shinigami often arrive on the scene too late to do anything to help—this, Uryuu knows from bitter experience—and if the Shinigami aren't there to help them, then who is to be their champion?

It can't go on. Hollows simply can not be allowed to go on devouring the dead and the living. Uryuu never wants to have to bear witness to that again.

Still, he doesn't know what to do.

Fear had overwhelmed him that day, and it still does now, keeping him rooted to the spot when he picks up on the telltale signals of a Hollow attack. Fear of ending up like _him_, dead, mangled beyond recognition, remains scattered on the grass. A distant roar has the birds fleeing in terror and Uryuu resisting the urge to do the same. His stomach knots in shame later, but in the heat of the moment all he can feel is stark, unreasoning terror.

Always present is the voice of doubt in his mind, the small voice sitting on top of memory to use it as a tool, telling him he's not strong enough. _You're __not __strong__ enough __to__ do __it.__ You__ couldn't __move __an __inch __to __help __Sensei; __what __makes __you __think __you__ can__ ever__ hope __to __help__ anyone__ else?__ You're__ not__ strong __enough.__ You're__ not __strong__ enough, __and__ you're __not __brave__ enough.__ You__ are__ hopelessly __inadequate __to __carry __on __your __name._ As much as it rankles, the essence of despair is capitulation, and there are times when he has to wonder how he would fare against a Hollow.

The answer, without fail, is "not well".

Outside, maybe a block away, the screams redouble and Uryuu grits his teeth. _I'm__ sorry. __I __can't __help __you. __I'm __sorry. _Naturally, the cries do not abate, and he squeezes his eyes shut; the action does nothing to help. _It __works__ for __Father. __Why __won't __it __work __for __me?_

_I'm so sorry. I can't do anything. I can't do anything at all._

In the dark hours, when he finds himself listening to things only he can hear and proves incapable of finding the resolve to do something about it, Uryuu wonders whether he shouldn't give it all up. Surrender the dreams, the hopes, the calling in the blood, and forget how to see. Live a life grounded in the mundane world, and never worry about the dead again.

Such a thought, even when he won't but half-admit he's having it, only amplifies shame and guilt, and fosters a keen sense of his own disloyalty. Uryuu has come to be like his father in at least one respect: he doesn't like mirrors, or anything that forces him to come face to face with his reflection. He's seen Ryuuken avoid mirrors in the past, and now, Uryuu does the same.

"_What's __the __use __in __wasting __worry __over __the __dead?__ There's __nothing __you __can__ do __to __help __them, __and __what __you __do __does__ nothing __to__ change__ their __lot.__ The__ only __people __you__ can __help __are__ those __whose __hearts __still __beat."_

When his grandfather was alive, Uryuu could tell himself that, even without his father's approval, everything would be alright.

Well, the plain truth is that his grandfather isn't here anymore. It's just Uryuu and his father.

The attitude Ryuuken adopts towards Soken's death is unbearably callous. He can behave as though his father never existed, as though that life was unimportant, not worth speaking of. Like Soken can just be forgotten, his existence expunged, erased. Ryuuken behaves as though he never knew him at all.

Uryuu comes so close to hating him sometimes, hating him for his denial of reality, for looking at him like he's a ghost or a shadow or something so ugly that he simply can't stand to be in the same room with him.

But Soken was right. That's the horrible thing; he was right. With him gone, Ryuuken is all Uryuu has left. It's just him and his father now, and, as bitter as is the taste the revelation leaves in his mouth, Uryuu knows he's all he has left.

It's in the nature of any child to want to please their parents. Uryuu is not unique. As little hope as he has of ever reaching the point where Ryuuken will be remotely happy with him, there is still some hope.

Something to make living in the same house with his father somewhat bearable, at least.

Blue eyes snap open wide when Uryuu realizes that the screams have stopped. Lip twitching uncontrollably, his eyes, slowly but surely, shift over towards the window. The mini-blinds have been drawn shut but they can't block out the light entirely; a crisp, cold autumn moon sends jail-stripe splashes of milky light down in neat, orderly lines all over the bed. _Is __it __over?_

It seems it is, and Uryuu can guess under what circumstances.

Licking his lips and feeling his bones ache like he's run a marathon, Uryuu shifts in his bed, pulling the sheets closer over his shoulders. It does nothing to block out the cold.

Uryuu wouldn't mind being accepted by his father, even if it's a dream that has little hope of ever finding a roost, even if Uryuu sets little store by hope. He doesn't think his father's acceptance would make it any easier to look at himself in the mirror, though.

It certainly wouldn't make his guilt any less unbearable.


	82. 82: Wither

**Title**: Wither**  
>AN**: Though rare, schizophrenia can occur in young children and what I described below are some of the typical symptoms of it.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>Uryuu has a habit of doing his homework at the kitchen table, at least on Sundays. Ryuuken isn't sure whether he does it at the kitchen table because there's actually a hard surface for him to bear down on or because it's easier to concentrate in the kitchen. He can't be sure whether Uryuu just does his homework at the kitchen table on Sundays or all week; if it's the former, there's a sneaking suspicion he doesn't like to think about, as to why Uryuu does his homework at the kitchen table, as opposed to in his room, on the day when his father is most likely to be around the house.<p>

Hunger has driven him towards the kitchen this early afternoon. Well, not hunger so much as Ryuuken has for once actually noticed that he's hungry. It's not like this is something that happens with regularity; when working, or reading, or doing research, or any number of things, Ryuuken is generally too absorbed in his work to notice such things as the passage of time, fatigue, or hunger. If the house was burning Ryuuken wouldn't notice until the flame was on his skin and the smoke was inside his lungs.

_Speaking of smoke… _Ryuuken shakes his head as he rifles through the refrigerator. No cigarettes today; he could use the relief but he promised himself, not today. _I can last until Monday. _It's probably not a coincidence that a headache's starting to shudder like thunder and pound like a drum player rapping drumsticks on his skull in tandem.

Uryuu sneaks surreptitious glances at Ryuuken as the latter puts a sandwich together (Nothing hot and no meat; Ryuuken can't remember the last time he ate something hot or something with meat, and he doesn't even keep meat in the house anyway, not usually). Whenever Ryuuken turns his gaze towards him Uryuu's eyes are fixed on his paper, pencil scribbling across, but with his back turned Ryuuken can feel eyes on him.

They say nothing to each other. The presence of a plate and cup on the drying rack tells Ryuuken that Uryuu has eaten lunch, and the child himself is busy at his homework. Uryuu is attending to his work, Ryuuken will go back to attending to his, and there is no need for words.

Back in his office, alone with his books, Ryuuken eats in silence and finds, though not to his immense surprise, his thoughts wandering towards Uryuu.

There has been no repeat of that stint of poor grades Uryuu had a few weeks ago. He's gotten the message, and either Uryuu's gotten over what it was that was wrong or he's doing something to compensate. His grades are back up to snuff, and Ryuuken does not complain.

That's not what Ryuuken's thoughts concern, apart from a fleeting mention in his mind. If there's nothing wrong, he's not going to bother with it.

Uryuu just seems so… _flat._

Granted, 'flat' might not be exactly the right word for it, but Ryuuken is at a loss for how to describe the state Uryuu has fallen into. Withdrawn might do the trick; dull might as well. Uncaring of petty semantics, Ryuuken watches his son and tallies up symptoms.

Uryuu was always a quiet child. His reticence does not have its roots in trauma; it's simply an aspect of his personality. If there is no need for pressing speech, Uryuu does not talk. Ryuuken never stops to think about all the times Uryuu tries to speak but thinks better of it. He's aware of it, but what causes Ryuuken discomfort he ignores. He won't dwell on those aborted attempts to speak.

A child's already not-inconsiderate inclination towards quietness has been taken to its logical extreme. Ryuuken doesn't think he's heard a word out of Uryuu in maybe three days; unusual, even given that Uryuu is quiet under normal circumstances and they see, at best, very little of each other these days.

There's more. Ryuuken may have a hard time looking at his son, but his eyes do have to fall on that head of blue-black hair, he is physically incapable of not noticing.

Quiet, withdrawn. In his eyes there is a film, a blankness; they stare straight through doors and walls, seem to see too far, and yet not at all. An air of utter, disturbing stillness permeates Uryuu at almost all times, whatever chaos there is mostly well-hidden. The only time stillness is shed is late at night when Ryuuken wakes up some nights and can hear the sounds of tossing and turning in the room over. He's entirely too docile; just nods and does whatever Ryuuken tells him to, without words. If Ryuuken has to describe it, it's a bit like watching a psychiatric patient whose meds sedate them a little too much. Just a little too sedated, just a little too cooperative. The only time Uryuu seems remotely normal is in the rare flash of anger.

"_Such sloppy handwriting," Ryuuken remarks almost casually, leaning over Uryuu's shoulder to watch him do his homework._

_For a moment, Ryuuken can see blue eyes flash and fingers tightening over the pencil, and in that moment Uryuu almost resembles something like his normal self. That moment passes soon enough, and with a mumbled "Sorry", Uryuu begins to erase every one of his answers with the intention of writing them more neatly._

_Ryuuken goes to the kitchen counter to get some more coffee—it's going to be a long night. Getting Uryuu to completely scrap his homework and start over has not been his intent, but he would do it again, just to catch even a momentary hint of emotion. It's the only way he has to be sure that his son's still in there, these days._

This is not like other situations Ryuuken has been in; he can not feign ignorance to its existence nor to its cause, no matter how much he wishes he could. He watches Uryuu recede further into himself by the day and Ryuuken knows exactly what's going on, and why.

Ryuuken is not a psychiatrist, but he has dealt with the sufferers of psychological trauma before. Grief, shock, post-traumatic stress, dissociation, catatonia, and more. It's not simple, and it's not easily treated (_sometimes 'cured' is too much to ask for_), despite what anyone thinks. He looks at Uryuu, knows what this change in him is a reaction to, frowns, and realizes that he has absolutely no idea what to do.

Uryuu probably wouldn't suffer for a trip to a psychiatrist, if there were any psychiatrists whom he could actually tell the whole story to. Unfortunately, there are no psychiatrists Ryuuken knows of who specialize in or even acknowledge the existence of the supernatural—he doubts he's going to find anyone who does in that particular field of medicine. He can't reasonably expect Uryuu to be capable of editing the story to the extent that it wouldn't immediately send up a hundred red flags with the one across from him. That would not be good.

If push came to shove, Ryuuken supposes he could bribe the psychiatrist to overlook the presence of ghosts and Hollows in Uryuu's ramblings, but he won't. Quite frankly, Ryuuken neither trusts nor esteems any official who can be bribed. If they can be bribed to not inform higher powers that a child is babbling on and on about ghosts and some sort of monster ripping his grandfather to shreds, they can be bribed to do just the opposite as well.

With bribing a non-option, Ryuuken can just imagine how Uryuu visiting a psychiatrist would end up. _Patient exhibits delusions and sensory hallucinations, along with social withdrawal and isolation and a lack of responsiveness that coincides with severe emotional distress. Clearly a case of early-onset schizophrenia._

Next thing Ryuuken knows, he'd find himself with his son locked up in an institution somewhere or so thoroughly drugged that he would barely be able to get out of bed in the mornings. That wouldn't help. It wouldn't do Uryuu any good at all. Institutionalization and antipsychotics wouldn't make Uryuu any less able to see ghosts and Hollows. It wouldn't make him forget, and it wouldn't do anything for that guilt complex Ryuuken knows to be brewing beneath the surface where he can't see. It would likely just make things worse.

Psychiatric treatment is out of the question, not an option. Uryuu isn't crazy—disturbed, perhaps, but not crazy—and an institution isn't the place for him.

This brings Ryuuken back to the reality that he doesn't know what to do. All he does is just sit there and watch as his son withers away, less like himself with each day. A pale shadow that will soon be a ghost in everything but name.


	83. 83: Snowballs

**Title**: Snowballs**  
>AN**: Nothing of importance.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p><em>I thought I wasn't going to have to get sick every other week anymore<em>, Uryuu thinks to himself, not without a touch of heat. Even if he's spent his whole life in and out of the sickbed, he really had thought he'd gotten past this stage of his life. Apparently not.

The telltale beeping of the thermometer alerts Ryuuken, who is in the kitchen, that it's done. "What does the thermometer say?" he calls over the rush of the sink. Uryuu doesn't know how he managed to discern the thermometer's faint beep from the tap water, but evidently it's no trouble for him.

Uryuu holds up the thermometer to examine it and feels another spike of frustration when he sees what the screen displays. "100.5," he responds with a croak, huddling further beneath the quilts and sinking into the couch cushions. The wind howls outside and he glowers at the window.

Uryuu has decided that he has a love-hate relationship with winter that, in the absence of snow, is this year a pure, undiluted hate relationship.

Though he couldn't tell you why, Uryuu has a very low tolerance for cold. As such he is usually at least a little uncomfortable in the house; after all, Ryuuken likes the cold far more than Uryuu does, and he's the one who controls the thermostat. But at least during summer, mid-spring or early fall Uryuu can step out the front door and find the outdoors to be warmer than it is inside. Not so in winter. In winter, there is nowhere to go to escape the cold. It's cold outside, at school in the house, even in the bathroom when he's taking a shower—the hot water just isn't enough to block out the cold, not entirely.

This is all fine and well, but the real reason Uryuu takes exception to winter is that it, without fail, puts him in a near-constant state of illness.

Of course, the typical reason _why _Uryuu tends to get sick every year at winter also happens to be the sole reason he hasn't written winter off altogether. Snow.

Uryuu loves the snow with the deep, unwavering love of a child. He loves to walk through it even if it gets him wet, to just be outside when the snow is falling. Even hating the frigid cold and the biting winds, even knowing that the snow is what gets him sick, Uryuu can't help but love the snow.

Sometimes, when waiting for their parents after school, some of the students will stage snowball fights outside the front of the elementary school. A couple of students with bright, shining eyes just start hurling snowballs at each other from out of nowhere, and it takes no time at all for anywhere from ten to fifty kids, from the kindergarteners all the way up to the sixth graders, to attack each other with great gusto. Screams echo several blocks away as the mob pelts each other with snowballs.

On those days Uryuu, shivering endlessly in his gray coat and tipping his nose downwards into his scarf, stops and stares at them all. Part of him, a very large part, considers running over and joining in, regardless of the possibility of his books getting wet or that he might get his glasses knocked off or that he might catch a cold. Just reach down, pack some snow into a ball and throw it at his nearest classmate; Uryuu knows he wouldn't miss. It would be so easy, and the more he thinks about it, the more he wants to.

But he doesn't. The truth is, Uryuu doesn't know these people and they don't know him. If any of his classmates recognized him, it would only be as "that creepy kid with the glasses who never talks". Not as Ishida. Certainly not as Uryuu. He isn't Uryuu to anyone but his father, and can't see how he ever will be again. Honestly, Uryuu wouldn't mind being Uryuu to someone, _anyone_ again, if only because that means he would be close to someone again, but he won't. As much as it bothers him, he doesn't see any way out. The prospect of being "that creepy kid with the glasses who never talks", and never being anything but that, never being Uryuu to anyone but his father, never again, is beyond unpleasant, restrictive, constricting. He just can't see any way past isolation.

At any rate, Uryuu doesn't join in with the snowball fighters. Who knows how long that would go on, and Uryuu can't afford to be late getting home. He doesn't want to get in trouble again. Besides, he is a stranger to everyone here, doesn't know how to be anything else, and can't work up the nerve to go try to befriend one of them for fear of the rejection that might follow. Even a snowball fight isn't any fun if you're lobbing snowballs at fifty strangers.

So he continues on down the sidewalk towards home, bracing against the piercing wind, dodging stray snowballs with a practiced ease that astounds anyone who happens to see it.

But there is no snow this year. No snow, no snowmen, no snow angels, and no snow balls. The catalyst that so often has Uryuu coughing, sneezing, shaking and running a fever is absent this year. It might come in the weeks to follow, but not right now.

Back to the present, Ryuuken trudges wearily into the living room, and takes the thermometer from Uryuu's hand without ceremony. He squints as he tries to make out the reading (apparently Ryuuken doesn't trust Uryuu to read a thermometer correctly), and sighs heavily to see that Uryuu's interpretation was right on the money.

To that sigh, Uryuu feels his face and neck burn a deep shade of crimson, and he ducks his head so that all his father sees is his hair. "Sorry," Uryuu mutters, both genuinely contrite and just a touch indignant. _Why am I sorry? I can't help getting sick. _Two ideas, first that Uryuu can't read a thermometer and second that getting sick was somehow his fault, just rub him the wrong way.

Ryuuken shakes his head. "What are you saying "sorry" for?" he asks with a hint of that all-too-familiar sharpness, before he shakes his head and runs a hand through his hair. "Just wait here," Ryuuken tells him, all the bite in his voice taken out by fatigue. "I'll be right back."

With considerable reluctance no less than his son's, Ryuuken has learned to be used to this too. This is much like the early days of Uryuu's childhood that, out of the two of them and for obvious reasons, only Ryuuken can remember with any clarity. Get sick entirely too often, huddle under as many covers as can be found, recover, rinse and repeat.

There is a difference this time, however. When Uryuu was very young, he would get sick a great deal, it's true, but the sickness had a clear starting point and a just as clear ending point, every time. Though both like to claim that it did, sickness did _not _strike Uryuu every other week; it was just quite frequent is all. Now, on the other hand, Uryuu is truly getting sick all the time. Not full-blown, lasting-two-days sick. Running a fever for six hours, twelve, maybe twenty-four sick. At least twice a week, every week, since the middle of September. Whenever Uryuu starts to feel weak and achy, that's how he knows.

Ryuuken returns, but this time with a glass of water and a bottle of pills. He sits down on the couch beside Uryuu and opens the bottle, wrestling with the childproof cap for a moment before prevailing, and taps out two small, circular white pills. "Take these with the water—remember, swallow _whole_; do _not_ chew them—and just lie down." His father's brown eyes are glazed with tiredness and shadowed with lack of sleep as he looks Uryuu over. "We will check your temperature again before you go to bed. Understand?"

In that moment, Ryuuken shows every one of his years and the full extent of his exhaustion. Uryuu looks at him and all he can see is the evidence of Ryuuken's past three sleepless nights in his purple-shadowed eyes and pale, drawn face and that he's long since ceased to possess any brown hair. Just gray now, light silver-gray. His face is relatively unlined but he just looks old and tired and…

Uryuu's stomach knots as he tries not to make comparisons, and he nods and takes the pills, hoping that it will work. Ryuuken's hand is heavy as lead on his shoulder, just a momentary thing, before he moves away and Uryuu is left to lie down on the couch by himself.

He keeps the quilts over him, trying and failing to block out the cold and his own thoughts. When Uryuu finally falls asleep, he dreams of snowball fights and of people who call him by name.


	84. 84: Questioning

**Title**: Questioning**  
>AN**: To those of you who are wondering, by the reckoning of my outline I am about halfway done right now, though given that my outline is forever expanding, you might want to take that with a grain of salt.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>There are two thoughts that occur to him between drooping eyes and bitten-back yawns. <em>Why am I still doing this? When is he coming home?<em>

Caught between the urge to fall asleep and a ribbon of disappointment curling around his stomach, Uryuu props his head up on one hand and keeps one eye trained on the window. Freezing rain makes the darkened glass glimmer. It's too early in the year for the thunderstorms that make the panes shake; instead, a slight wisp of wind makes the panes rattle. The glass remains dark; no hint of golden light tonight.

Uryuu tries and fails to remember a time when he's actually sat up and stayed awake long enough for his father to come home before he falls asleep. Three years he's been doing this, off and on, and he hasn't stayed awake long enough once. Not even once. In the morning when he either wakes up on the couch or in his bed, having given up, he wakes up with shame sticking to the roof of his mouth like peanut butter. Half of the time Ryuuken is already gone when Uryuu wakes up in the morning, and the child wakes up to the sound of his alarm clock going off and nothing else.

Tonight, Uryuu is determined to still be awake when Ryuuken comes home, but sleep is encroaching on the corners of his mind and starting to put weights on his shoulder. He considers unwrapping the quilt from around his shoulders, reasoning that the chill of the house might give the jolt needed to stay awake, but no. The cold is too much, and Uryuu would rather be warm and sleepy than cold and awake. He can do it, he reasons to himself. _I can do it._

But sleep still settles in his bones.

As he gets more and more tired and keeping his eyes open becomes more of a struggle, Uryuu's thoughts inevitably go to a place he'd rather they didn't. _Why does he always come home so late? _The clock's ticking bores into his skull. Uryuu resists the temptation to get a step-ladder, take the clock down and pull the batteries out of the back. He has no doubt that this would only lead to him getting in trouble with his father; Uryuu has an easier (shorter) time listing the things that won't get him in trouble with Ryuuken than the things that will. _What keeps him there so late?_

Ryuuken has shown no sign of permanently changing his work habits over the years; if he comes home early or on time, there's usually a reason and it never lasts long. He stays at the hospital long into the night, every night that he's there. Uryuu refuses to believe that he's simply been caught in traffic or that he makes side trips on the way home; Ryuuken always travels in a straight line and he never takes long at the grocery store. Instead, Uryuu can only assume that he has been staying past dark at the hospital.

Even at his age, Uryuu can understand devotion to work. He loves his books and has more or less recovered his dedication to his schoolwork. But he doesn't spend every waking moment at the school doing his schoolwork.

_Why does he stay there so late? _There's a small spike of resentment—all that is coming back; maybe it was never gone to begin with—that makes Uryuu's lips form a thin line, but what is also there is what always seems to be somewhere with him these days. A vague, ill-defined sense of guilt, not the intense guilt that still burns from his grandfather's preventable death, but guilt that Uryuu can't pin down, can't quite see to its source.

Mostly, Uryuu just wishes his father would come home. To just be awake to see car lights on the window would be enough to last him forever. He feels like he might as well be living alone for how little he actually sees his father and the house…

It's a funny thing about the house. When there are two people in it, it feels far too small. Between the bitterness, the guilt, the echoes of lives long since gone and the things that have gone unsaid whether they ought to or not, there's very little room for its living occupants. When Ryuuken is home Uryuu can barely breathe for all the unseen presences bearing down on him. He can barely move without bumping into somebody's ghost.

When it's just Uryuu, the house is too big. Too cold, too empty, too big. The hours stretch out for eons and he is more aware of being alone than he is at any other time. Neither choice is wonderful, but Uryuu would rather the house be too cramped and crowded than too large and empty.

Sleep continues pushing down on his eyes, until Uryuu just can't stay awake anymore. If he tips his head down onto the pillow he knows he'll be asleep within seconds, and tonight, he doesn't want that. Shaking his head to keep his eyes open, he slips down from the couch with the quilt in his arms, and inches wearily towards his bedroom. He doesn't want to know tonight, whether his father has noticed him waiting but didn't bother to wake him up.

He really doesn't want to know the answer to all those questions.


	85. 85: Childish

**Title**: Childish**  
>AN**: Entirely too much symbolism.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>Uryuu accidentally knocks it off his nightstand one day when he's going for a book and a pencil—he's not usually at all clumsy but today was just an anomaly. The book and the pencil go flying to and, with a sigh, Uryuu hops to the floor to retrieve them.<p>

It's only when he's crouching on the floor that Uryuu notices that he's knocked the sock monkey off the nightstand as well.

The floppy gray stuffed animal lies prone on the floor, all of its stringy limbs and its tail stretched out. Uryuu looks at it, long and hard, and is met only with a smile constructed out of red felt and the glint of black button eyes.

He had almost forgotten he had the sock monkey. Uryuu hasn't touched it in months, when there was a point in his life when he would clutch the toy to his chest almost every day. It's not like Uryuu ever slept with the doll, but he paid far more attention to it in the past than he does now.

_You're still here, are you_? Almost perfectly impassive, Uryuu lifts the sock monkey off the floor and holds it in his hands, staring down at it with a small frown.

_Don't you think you're getting too old for this thing?_

The world of schoolbooks and planning towards junior high (Uryuu's only nine, but still) holds no more of a place for stuffed animals than the increasingly distant world of ghost and Hollows. There's no room for the sock monkey; none at all, and Uryuu's fingers tighten around rough gray cloth as he resists the urge to tuck the sock monkey in his arms one more time.

_Time to give up childish things?_

Uryuu considers taking the sock monkey to the local secondhand store—Ryuuken may have given it to him but Uryuu is sure he wouldn't notice if the sock monkey were to suddenly disappear. He considers it, but can't quite manage it in the end. Uryuu holds too strong of an attachment to the stuffed animal, both for what small comfort it gave him when he was upset and how he got in the first place.

The sock monkey is not taken to a secondhand store. It is instead put on the windowsill along with the old rocks Uryuu has had there since time immemorial, and left to gather dust.


	86. 86: Stash

**Title**: Stash**  
>AN**: I think any parent who smokes likely dreads the idea of their child ever finding where they keep the cigarettes.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>Uryuu blows on his fingers to try and bring some warmth back to them as he walks to the bathroom, careful to be quiet so he won't wake up his father. Really, he shouldn't have to be blowing on his fingers and shivering in May, even if it is the early hours of the morning. Uryuu decides that a thermometer's lowest allowed setting, by law, ought to be somewhere around seventy-five degrees and moves on.<p>

All he wants is a glass of water. He has cracked lips, a dry mouth and a slightly sore throat—a glass of water would do a world of good right now. That's all Uryuu wants, but when he gets to the bathroom and flicks on the light (after shutting the door so the light doesn't spill out into the hall), he doesn't see his glass anywhere.

On the rim of the bathroom sink, there are usually two glass cups, used by Uryuu and Ryuuken when they brush their teeth, get thirsty in the middle of the night, et cetera. Everything else is still in place, neat and orderly, up to Ryuuken's standards and Uryuu's own, but Uryuu's cup is nowhere to be found.

Sure, the other glass is still there, but that's his _father's _glass. Uryuu has no intention of using someone else's glass. He's been well-trained, both by his father and his schoolteachers; he has no desire to pick up germs and illness by drinking after someone else has used the same cup. Uryuu's sick often enough without getting sick due to something that could have easily been avoided.

_Where is it? _Uryuu thinks with a pensive, slightly exasperated frown. He starts to look around the bathroom for his cup, anywhere it could be—by the shower (_he rakes aside the shower curtain and finds nothing there_), maybe in the linen closet _(only sheets and towels, as usual, crisp and neatly folded; no gleam of glass to be found there_)—until he gets to the cupboard under the sink.

He doesn't find his cup, but he does find something else down there, hidden among the pipes and the multiple unopened packs of razors (_black wrappings and dark blue stems; the metal blades glint dully_) and a green-wrapped package of orange packets that Uryuu doesn't recognize.

Though he has yet to voice his dissatisfaction to the man, Uryuu can't understand why his father smokes. Ryuuken has to know it's not good for him. Even Uryuu knows that, both by his schoolteachers occasionally feeling the need to drill the perils of smoking into their class and from independent reading. From reading some of the books in Ryuuken's office, Uryuu learned more than he _ever _wanted to know about what smoking does to the human body, in graphic detail, and with illustrations, no less; knowing what a person with a hole in their throat looks like has been quite… _enlightening. _The wave of nausea that came over Uryuu when he saw it was just icing on the cake.

_Father's a doctor; he ought to know better._

Well, maybe Uryuu's personal inclinations have something to do with it too.

As much as he has tried to be obedient, compliant, Ryuuken is a master of driving nails under the skin with jibes and criticisms he doesn't bother to hide. They come out of nowhere, with no provocation, and every time, it becomes more difficult for Uryuu not to snap back. He bites his tongue until his mouth is awash with blood, but resentment still roils in him every day, both from the jibes and Ryuuken's continued blindness and denial of the past. Uryuu doesn't know how to please him, and even if doing so remains what he wants more than anything in the world, he is starting to wonder why he even tries.

Uryuu's reaction to the smell of cigarette smoke has a part to play as well. Every time the acrid odor of cigarette smoke has occasion to reach him, coughing fits and piercing headaches are sure to follow. In extreme cases he feels like he's going to be sick. Ryuuken at least has the decency not to smoke in the house, but all that means is that whenever Uryuu comes home from school, he is met with the stench as he fumbles with his key to unlock the front door and starts to cough helplessly, eyes watering. He wrinkles his nose whenever he catches the smell of smoke clinging to his father's hair or his clothes and wonders how he can stand it.

For a moment, Uryuu glares at the multiple boxes of cigarette packs, white and neat with the logo front and center, jammed down to the very back of the cupboard. He would love nothing more than to be able to throw them all away, but doesn't like to think of the way Ryuuken would react.

Then, he remembers where his cup is. On the drying rack in the kitchen, sitting out until the morning comes.

Tearing his gaze away and closing the cupboard door, Uryuu turns off the bathroom light and continues on, creeping down the hall towards the kitchen in darkness and in silence.

He'll get a glass of water in the kitchen, something to soothe his scratchy throat and ease his parched mouth. Tap water from the kitchen sink is no different than tap water from the bathroom sink, and even if it were, Uryuu is too choosy to care where his water came from.

That's all he wanted.


	87. 87: Notice

**Title**: Notice**  
>AN**: Nothing to say, except that apparently superscripting doesn't work with Doc Manager, so "8^2" and "3^2" are 8 and 3 squared. So frustrating.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>Uryuu frowns as he taps his pencil against the side of his head and stares down at the problem before him.<p>

_1. 8__^2 __+ 26 – 6 x 3(8 + 12) / 5 – 9 + 3__^2__. Solve without using a calculator._

There are nineteen others just like it, monsters all. Uryuu may like math for its cut-and-dry nature, may like it for the fact that you're either right or you're wrong and that there's absolutely no ambiguity, but this… This is just too much. _Do I multiply and divide before I add and subtract, or is it the other way around? How do I do exponents again? Parentheses are entirely too much trouble. _Eventually, Uryuu shakes his head in frustration and dives for his math book; his calculator could rid him of his problems in an instant, but he's not going to break the rules.

In the afternoons, doing his math homework, there is no one there to help him, but Uryuu is used to that. As far as homework goes, he's relatively self-sufficient. There's no help he needs that can't be found in a textbook, be it for math problems, fill-in-the-blank sheets or for grammar exercises. Ryuuken has never offered help and Uryuu isn't sure he'd give it if asked; besides, in order to help one's child with their math homework, one has to first be home.

"_Why do you insist on allowing your curiosity to override what little common sense you have?"_

_Ryuuken has removed his glasses and pinches the bit of skin between his eyes at the top of his nose. He is sitting at his desk so that only half of his face is visible to Uryuu. His tone is more wearily exasperated than coldly angry, but there is still an incisive edge that leaves Uryuu restraining the urge to bristle. His fists clench._

"_I haven't done anything to your books." Even if his anger is rising, Uryuu is careful to keep a polite, even deferent tone. Showing anger only gives Ryuuken, perpetually composed, the upper hand—Uryuu wonders if he should be disturbed that the term "upper hand" enters into his thinking. "I don't understand why I shouldn't be reading them."_

_When Ryuuken turns to face his son, his gaze is cool and utterly withering. "I would still rather you stopped." Every word is even, deliberate. "You're in over your head, Uryuu."_

They've started arguing again. When it comes to Uryuu and Ryuuken, the casual observer would likely never be able to tell a normal conversation from an argument—both are stilted, succinct, and dangerously composed. Someone who watches a little more closely would notice how the air is charged and thick during arguments, how it gets nearly impossible to breathe, how hard the eyes of both become. The temperature in the room tends to drop by about twenty degrees when they argue, with carefully polite words and not even the slightest hint of rudeness.

Uryuu wonders how long it will be before they are snapping and shouting at each other as they once did.

What arguments they have are not over Hollows or ghosts or Grandfather or tradition. Nothing that weighty. Instead, arguments are over small things, things so, _so _trivial that they can't possibly be all there is to it.

Yesterday, it was the books. Ryuuken had finally figured out that Uryuu was going into his office and reading through his books in his spare time. The strict order to stop was unmistakable, and for now he is observing it, but Uryuu suspects that before long he will go back to sneaking into Ryuuken's office when the man isn't home and reading his books for his own amusement. It's not like there's a lock on the door (though Uryuu wouldn't put it past Ryuuken to eventually have one installed; after all, he has the locks on the front and back doors changed every year); Uryuu will just have to be more careful about covering his tracks.

He really doesn't want to be a lightning rod for his father's anger.

Uryuu finds the section in his math book covering order of operations.

"_For help remembering order of operations, consider this American acronym:_

_**P**__lease (for Parentheses)**  
>E<strong>__xcuse (for Exponent)**  
>M<strong>__y (for Multiplication)**  
>D<strong>__ear (for Division)**  
>A<strong>__unt (for Addition)**  
>S<strong>__ally (for Subtraction)"_

The boy tilts his head, nibbling on his lip contemplatively. _I suppose that helps. _After checking up on how to do exponents, he goes back to his math homework, though Uryuu's mind isn't entirely on his work.

Uryuu has long since learned that as far as he is concerned, it takes very little to garner his father's disapproval. Substandard grades on schoolwork, holding eating utensils the wrong way, leaving wrinkles in the sheets when he makes his bed (whenever Ryuuken has occasion to notice it, which is rarely, given that Uryuu is usually asleep for the hours when he is home), making a racket on Sundays, and more. Uryuu is left skirting away from Ryuuken whenever he is home, unsure if he's going to be met with chastising words or simply indifference.

He will, albeit it with a measure of reluctance, admit that he no longer possesses the most non-confrontational personality in the world. Uryuu will still avoid a fight at all costs and maintain politeness even when his blood is boiling, but the urge to bicker openly with his father grows stronger with each passing day.

Ryuuken just always seems to know what to say to dig under his skin. Calm voice, cool eyes, dispassionate face, and words that seem to be carefully chosen just for the purpose of infuriating Uryuu. Perpetually pointing out flaws and imperfections with methodical attention to detail, remarking on clumsiness or unsatisfactory grades, and Uryuu feels the back of his neck burn. Uryuu doesn't know whether he does it on purpose or whether it's just in Ryuuken's nature to nitpick every little failing in his son. Either way, he makes sure that Uryuu is well-aware of his own inadequacy.

Words can't describe how much Uryuu wishes he could say he doesn't care. Words can't describe how much he wishes he could say that he doesn't care if his father is _never _pleased with him. If he could say that then he could cast all of this off like a fleeting bad dream or the remnants of sickness after a battle with the flu.

The reality is different. The reality is that, when Uryuu has gotten good results back on a test and Ryuuken demands to see it, Uryuu waits with the hints of a tentative smile playing on his lips, and can't help but think _Maybe he'll like it. _He's proud of the way he manages to keep his face from falling when Ryuuken's only reaction is to hand the paper back to him without a word.

A word of praise, a hint of acceptance, some sign that his presence in the house is not viewed as unwelcome encroachment. Uryuu wouldn't mind these things. Just to hear it, just once; that would be enough to last him for the rest of his days, he thinks.

Of course, wounded ego and an increasing sense of anger won't be cured by a few kind words; Uryuu is old enough to know that. He'll still wake up in the morning and the next time he sees his father, he'll duck his head to hide timidity and resentment. Still, it would be nice, even if only once.

There are no ideal situations here, but some immensely favored over the others.

Uryuu sits and waits every day for the sound of the front door opening. When his father is home, he looks straight through him. This is the situation he prefers. Far from ideal, but better than the alternatives.


	88. 88: Past

**Title**: Past**  
>AN**: I covered a scene from Masaki's funeral with Isshin and Ryuuken as the main characters in a oneshot called _The Dry Earth, _but this takes place after the conversation in that oneshot, and is from Ryuuken's perspective rather than Isshin's. It's also a bit AU from that oneshot, but I picture it and this entry as happening in more or less the same universe.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>"<em>Listen… I know how much you hate funerals, so thanks."<em>

"_It wasn't a problem."_

Ryuuken tries to remember the last time he spoke to Masaki and can't pin down an exact date. Not in the last five years, at least—he's pretty much cut off all contact with the outside world over the years, seeing it as unnecessary. As his former acquaintances, associates and friends were separated from him by more and more years, he grew more detached from them, both the ones he had cared about and the ones he had despised.

When he was twenty, he learned that one of his friends from high school had died and felt some vague twinge of regret but didn't think too long on it. With Masaki, he gets the same twinges of regret, but a little stronger, and he has been brooding on it, longer than even he expected.

A roll of thunder peals in the distance. It's been such a rainy summer but today is without rain and the air is muggy, humid, clinging stubbornly to skin. Everyone else has gone, Isshin's children shepherded away by their maternal grandparents, but Isshin and Ryuuken remain by the headstone, the former kneeling and the latter standing behind him. They can speak more freely alone.

"So… It was a Hollow, wasn't it?" The question is uncomfortable, both because it hits a little too close to home for Ryuuken himself and because he is for once aware of his own too-incisive nature, but it has to be asked. He doesn't know why; it just has too.

Either Isshin is too stunned by grief or too tolerant of his friend's shortcomings to be offended. He looks up, something like absent surprise registering on his face. "Yeah… I couldn't get too much in the way of a coherent story out of Ichigo, but yeah, I think so. How'd you know? I never said anything."

"I caught the smell at the wake," Ryuuken answers shortly, and again falls to reminiscing.

Masaki was clothed in a blue dress for the wake, eyes shut and face peaceful—she could have been just sleeping, and if Ryuuken were a little less observant, he might have thought that at first. Bizarrely, Ryuuken found himself momentarily trying to remember what color dress Sayuri had been put in for her own funeral and failed; he's not even sure if she had worn a dress at all. Looking at her, Ryuuken was struck by how youthful Masaki looked. She had given birth to three children and had died at the age of thirty-nine, but her face was smooth and unlined, and not a hint of gray showed in her light brown hair. Ryuuken knows how aged he must look in comparison.

It was a proper Japanese wake, alright. Relatives no one had ever seen before, Buddhist rites despite Masaki's family not even being Buddhist, incense, sutras, the works. In that it was very different from the funerals Ryuuken's family members had had. Simply a viewing at the funeral home and burial as opposed to cremation, as per Quincy custom; the sort of thing that screams _"Foreigner!" _the way speaking with an Osakan accent anywhere but Osaka immediately gets you pegged as an idiot. If Ryuuken does recall, when his mother died there had been some dispute between his father and his mother's family on whether Isono was to be buried or cremated but eventually Soken, displaying uncharacteristic stubbornness, won out, and Isono was buried rather than cremated.

Ryuuken had no desire to stick around any longer than what was required at the wake. Masaki's parents had been staring at him for the better part of half an hour (either they'd recognized him as one of Masaki's high school classmates or they were trying to figure out just who on Earth he was), and the atmosphere was starting to get distinctly oppressive. The sight of Masaki in her coffin, while not entirely unnerving (Ryuuken's seen worse), was a bit disquieting. He had left Uryuu at home then as he has today, and while Ryuuken has more or less made a career out of leaving Uryuu to his own devices, he is not above using him as an excuse. Besides, Ryuuken isn't a close relative; he doubted it would have been acceptable to stay overnight with Masaki's family.

Returning to the present, Ryuuken catches the bare bones of incredulity pass over Isshin's face as he looks up at him. "What smell?" Incredulity is confirmed by the rather insulting note in his voice.

By smell, Ryuuken means the musty, unearthed odor he has learned, from experience, to associate with a Hollow. The smell you'd expect a creature to have after clawing its way up from hundreds of feat of earth; Ryuuken picked it up after Sayuri and Soken's deaths, occasionally on injured patients in the hospital, and now on Masaki. It's unmistakable. Ryuuken can only assume that in the years since Isshin was an active Shinigami, he's forgotten the smell, and Ryuuken doesn't answer him.

At any rate, Isshin doesn't press the subject. Instead, he sighs deeply, eyes falling on the headstone, before he presses a question to his watcher. "Why didn't you bring your son?"

The question brings the vivid image of clear blue eyes filled to the brim with apprehension and resentment to mind, and Ryuuken has to blink the image away. "I saw no reason in dragging him along to the funeral of a woman he doesn't know." The fact that it's getting increasingly difficult to be in the same vicinity as Uryuu without their carefully constructed silences devolving into arguments doesn't enter in to it. "Why?"

Isshin shrugs, remarkably offhand for a man who just lost his wife—but then again, he's had two lifetime's worth of losing people to help give him a little perspective. It wouldn't be the first time Isshin's lost someone; he handles grief better as a result. "It would have been interesting to see how he and Ichigo got on."

Ryuuken snorts. "Because Masaki's funeral is the perfect venue for Uryuu and your eldest to become acquainted."

The new widower squares his shoulders defensively. "Hey, you know Masaki was all for peace and harmony. Like I said, it would have been interesting to see if they would have gotten along or if they would have completely ripped into each other like we did when we first met."

_How is that interesting. _"More likely it would have been neither," Ryuuken murmurs, smoothing down his coat at the lightning cracking the sky and the siren-call of thunder in the distance. "Uryuu is not what I would call a sociable child. Likely he would have spent the whole time stepping on my heels or standing against the wall."

"Complete antithesis of his mother," Isshin remarks, and winces when he sees that Ryuuken's face contort. "Sorry." He shakes his contrition off soon enough to say, "Eh, kids."

Another line of memory is drawn up from the abyss at this remark of Isshin's, and Ryuuken narrows his eyes, stuffing his hands in his pockets as he's wont to do under some sort of strain. "Spoken like a man who's had the opportunity to raise children twice?"

Isshin stares up at him blankly and Ryuuken sighs. "It came up in conversation about nine years ago. In a hospital waiting room, if I recall correctly, while your wife was going into labor." Ryuuken remembers that conversation quite vividly. They were sitting quietly, hands braced on their knees and not daring to look at each other as men often do when a woman is going into labor (at least from Ryuuken's experience), and suddenly, completely out of the blue, Isshin started talking about having had a family back before he had died and become a Shinigami. It had been so surprising, so surprising that Ryuuken had only been able to look at him and listen, his sharp tongue completely failing him.

Isshin nods. "Yeah…" His eyes cloud over and he licks his lips. "Yeah, I guess so. Mind you, I didn't get the chance to finish last time, so adolescence for the three of them is going to be me winging it the whole way." The laugh that follows is strangely high-pitched and strangled; it sounds more appropriate to a cheap baby doll. "Shoot, I could be running into my descendants left and right and I'd never know it."

He stands up and brushes off his pants, and Isshin is faking a smile. "You got any smokes on you?"

That's a rhetorical question and Ryuuken can't help but feel insulted; anyone who knows him (and that list is short) knows that Ryuuken _always _has cigarettes. "Yes, I do." He frowns, confused in spite of himself. "I thought you'd stopped," Ryuuken points out, voice lowered.

"I have." Isshin kicks at the earth absently. "Just thought I'd start a tradition. Smoke a cigarette on the anniversary of Masaki's death."

"Isshin, Masaki died a week ago." Ryuuken doesn't know whether to be annoyed or pitying at the fact that Isshin can't remember the day his wife died. To his horror, he finds himself leaning more towards the latter.

A look of annoyance flits over Isshin's face. "Shut up and give me a cig and your lighter," he mutters, holding out a hand.

Lazy trails of bluish gray smoke snake up towards the sky (Camel, though Isshin's used to the particular taste, and it's not a coincidence that they smoke the same brand), and Ryuuken has to wonder where the years go.


	89. 89: Blade

**Title**: Blade**  
>AN**: Guys, I swear I don't bite.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>His eyes are starting to droop when Ryuuken, lethargy robbing him of his walls, starts to wonder if things are just going to stay like they are now for the rest of his and Uryuu's lives. He adjusts his glasses, straightens his back and keeps reading, forcing sleep out of his eyes. Ryuuken doesn't like to dwell on such things.<p>

Eventually, however, his thoughts are dragged back there. The book is one he's read through many times and Ryuuken could recite its passages in his sleep if he had to. His eyes see the words but don't register them; the sentences all run together, become a mish-mash of alphabet soup.

When Uryuu was still allowed to crawl into his father's bed after having a nightmare, if Ryuuken was still awake and Uryuu didn't fall asleep immediately, lulled by a newfound sense of security, he would peek over Ryuuken's shoulder and try to read the words. Given that the book Ryuuken was reading was usually a textbook of some sort filled to the breaking point with medical jargon, Ryuuken doubts that Uryuu was ever able to take much away from the experience. If he was able to understand a whole paragraph it would have been a miracle. Nevertheless, Uryuu continued to read, mouthing the words out like a gasping fish, and, despite himself, Ryuuken was a little gratified by the curiosity he showed. At least school wouldn't be much of an issue if Uryuu maintained that inquisitiveness.

These days, things are different (_And somehow stay the same_). Ryuuken doesn't want Uryuu going into his office and reading his books. Uryuu is hopelessly out of depth among books most college students couldn't be expected to comprehend—he won't be ten for another month and a half. There's also the fact that he doesn't ask permission first and, being a child, he could easily damage the books without meaning to. Uryuu's recalcitrance shines through even if he tries to maintain a façade of politeness; if he were a Hollow then one well-aimed swipe would be enough to split that mask clean in two.

This is only the tip of the iceberg. This and other petty clashes are only there to hide the reality, and even then, it's there, plainly visible, if you have the eyes to see it.

However reluctant he is to admit it, Ryuuken acknowledges that Uryuu is match for him in anger and resentment. He doesn't seem to know how to focus it, so Uryuu's anger always comes out blunter than Ryuuken's; his words can't break the skin the way Ryuuken's can. If Uryuu's tongue is a blade, it's a dull one compared to his father's, but a blade nonetheless.

Uryuu wants something. Being honest with himself, Ryuuken knows what he wants out of him. It is something so simple, something that ought to be so easily given by a parent to their child. It ought to be automatic, or so the world at large believes. Ryuuken knows better, knows it isn't that easy, and knows his own limitations—Uryuu wants something form him, and Ryuuken is either incapable or just unwilling to give it. Uryuu senses it, and uses his anger and his resentment to mask pain and longing. That's why his bladed tongue is dull; his pain and longing makes him hold back. God only knows what he could turn into if he ever let go.

Ryuuken is aware that there is a problem. Following his characteristic patterns of behavior, Ryuuken's reaction to the revelation is to try to ignore the problem entirely. As usual, this does nothing to help—if anything, it's making the whole situation worse.

Uryuu still labors under grief and guilt, even if he no longer recognizes the former and tries his hardest not to acknowledge the latter. He shows little enthusiasm for food, plainly eating only because his body requires food. There's the omnipresent sleep problems, the insomnia, the nightmares. He buries himself in work, be it schoolwork or something else—Uryuu has become every bit as obsessively neat and clean as his father, and will spend hours tidying up his room even if there's nothing wrong with it. Ryuuken watches and is able to spot, to a one, the way Uryuu's behaviors resemble the ones he adopted immediately following Sayuri's death.

These are things they need desperately to say to each other, but can't and won't. The arguments over small matters are the result, symptoms of the problem but not the cause.

It's very late, and Ryuuken can't keep his eyes open. He puts the book on the nightstand, slides his glasses down his nose, and turns out the light.

Things could have gotten better between them after Soken's death. On some level, Ryuuken had hoped they would, but had not done what was necessary to ensure that their relationship would change for the better. Instead, things have just fallen to the same hollow routine that it was before, and in the face of inaction, they can only grow further apart.

They don't learn. They never do.


	90. 90: Tears

**Title**: Tears**  
>AN**: Not much to say on this one.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>He hadn't wanted to wake his father. In fact, Uryuu hadn't meant to let his nightmare get to him at all. <em>I'm supposed to be able to handle this, <em>he tells himself, over and over again, sitting on the edge of his bed and wringing his hands. _I'm supposed to be strong enough not to cry at nightmares anymore._

_So why wasn't I tonight?_

Every teacher Uryuu has ever had has told their class not to eat right before going to bed, because doing so will give you nightmares. Maybe, Uryuu supposes, maybe he should have listened to them, because he did get some cheese out of the refrigerator just before going to bed. Maybe, if he hadn't and had been content to go to bed a little hungry, he might not have had the nightmare—personally, Uryuu doubts it, but even he can give a little thought to hope once in a while.

Uryuu's nightmares, the ones he can remember, center around one thing. Having nightmares about Hollows tearing into flesh never loses the raw flavor of terror it had the first time. The roar making bones rattle, the sight of a grotesque mask burning itself on the eyelids, the stench of blood rolling and falling like a gory ocean tide. Uryuu can't sleep under such circumstances.

When he was very young, Uryuu's nightmares were more abstract. Never a situation, but simply a roar, the reek of blood both stagnant and fresh, the glimpse of a mask. It had been enough, more than enough, to jolt him into wakefulness, drenched in cold sweats.

There are no more abstracts now, only the horror of hunger and violent death. Uryuu's dreams are saturated with blood glistening on leaves and splattering on the grass. All he sees is a Plus or a living human without a face being ripped apart by a Hollow who smacks its non-existent lips as it gorges itself. Screams rise like fire, and no matter how much he wants to move and help them, he's paralyzed. One arrow in the Hollow's direction would be enough, but all Uryuu can do is hide behind a tree and watch as the victim screams for help.

That's how he finds himself clawing his way up from tangled sheets, face encrusted with tears. Uryuu sits up on the edge of his bed, stuffing his fist into his mouth to try and muffle sobs, tasting salt on his lips. _Breathe… Breathe… _His eyes are first focused on his own feet, then screwed shut.

The light pressing on his eyelids from the overhead fixture being turned on makes Uryuu's eyes snap open.

Uryuu isn't sure what woke Ryuuken up. Maybe he wasn't able to hide his sobbing as well as he thought, maybe his thrashing against the bedclothes roused Ryuuken from sleep. Either way, he's standing in the doorway, arms folded across his chest, squinting without his glasses, looking decidedly unfinished half-grasped with sleep.

His eyes narrow further as he looks at the tear stains on his son's face. Uryuu takes his hand from his mouth, knuckles red with teeth marks, braces his hands on his knees and holds Ryuuken's gaze in spite of himself, with bloodshot eyes.

"Uryuu…" Uryuu can't tell exactly what that tone in Ryuuken's voice is, but he sounds far from pleased. His eyes are impenetrable, face creased with tiredness. "…If you can't even handle a nightmare without falling to pieces, how do you expect to be able to handle the rest of your life?"

Ryuuken turns out the light and goes back to his own bedroom and his own bed, and leaves Uryuu sitting on the edge of his bed in the dark. He has no time to deal with his child's nightmares, and none of the patience needed to do so either.

Eventually, Uryuu manages to crawl back under the sheets, telling himself that, without fail, every time he has had a nightmare every time he falls back to sleep afterwards he's been treated only to dreamless sleep. The sheets are cool and crisp; he shivers slightly, bracing his shoulders and reaching to rub saline water from his cheeks with the back of his hand. He never feels quite so alone as he does when he settles back into bed after waking from a nightmare. Every shadow has a life of its own and Uryuu is exhausted, worn-out and spent, limbs weak. His mind doesn't dare wander.

_Note to self: In future, don't let Father catch you crying._

Words can't describe how much Uryuu wishes it was as easy as Ryuuken makes it sound.

But he knows it's not.


	91. 91: Breathe

**Title**: Breathe**  
>AN**: Drawing on my memories of elementary school, what I noticed is that boys and girls tend to stick to their own gender when choosing friends. You see groups of all-boys and all-girls, but co-ed is a bit harder to come by. Also, this is more setting up the next chapter than anything else; I apologize for the filler.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>Sometimes, Uryuu contemplates other students during school. Now is such a time, when everyone is packing up their things to go home.<p>

Girls chatter animatedly among their groups of friends, telling each other their plans for the weekend. Occasionally invitations to come to one house in particular are passed around. If the class has taken a test or a quiz recently, they will exchange grades, consoling those who did poorly (_"I'm so sorry! I'm sure you'll do better next time."_) and expressing either admiration or envy of those who did well (_"I wish it came as easily for me as it does for you_."). They melt into their respective groups and file out of the class.

The boys are much the same, if more mindful of their dignity and thus quieter about it. For the most part, they don't exchange grades—a grimace or the brief flash of teeth in a smile is enough. Like the girls they tell each other what they're going to do over the weekend, and break off into their own groups of friends when they leave.

While this is going on, among the crunch of papers being stuffed carelessly into book bags, among the squeak of shoes on linoleum and the clamor of two dozen voices, Uryuu puts his things away in silence. He is not spoken to and does not speak; instead, he listens to the talk around him, gleaning information utterly useless to him.

Uryuu doesn't have anyone to talk to on the way home from school. He used to exchange a few words with the spirits he might run into on the sidewalks, but all that does anymore is make him sad, not to mention attract a lot of stares on the street. Uryuu used to be ignorant, quite blissfully, of the way passers-by would stare at him when he stopped to talk to a Plus, but no longer. These days, he is painfully conscious of it, doesn't want to be taken for crazy, and says nothing.

All he does anymore is hold up a hand and wave weakly to the ghost of an adolescent boy, clad in a high school uniform, who frequents a bus stop. The older boy, who hangs around the perpetually crowded bus stop in the hopes of running into someone spiritually sensitive, is so relieved that someone can see him that he discards a teenager's disdain of children younger than himself to nod back.

When he leaves, Uryuu finds anonymity in the crowd and, assaulted by voices all around, wonders why they're so eager to go home. It takes Uryuu a moment to remember that it's the weekend and that most of them have plans; that's reason enough to be excited, he supposes.

For himself, Uryuu isn't so eager to get home. Even if he doesn't like the chilly weather, he'll hold his jacket closely about him and take his time going home, sometimes stopping in a shop for something hot to drink (Uryuu gets his money from odd jobs; it's not like he gets very much, but it's enough to have a decent amount of pocket money). He doesn't worry about Ryuuken getting home before him anymore; he knows better. The only time Uryuu hurries home anymore is when it's raining.

He gets outside and winces at the sunlight after having been cooped up inside all day. The air is crisp and chill and very fresh compared to the classroom, the sky a cloudless, pretty blue.

Uryuu is in absolutely no hurry, unlike his classmates who run down the sidewalk, laughing and calling to each other. All home is to him is a place where he does his homework, eats, sleeps, and argues with his father. The activities he uses to block thought out of his head and keep calm are becoming increasingly ineffective.

Others might want to go home, but Uryuu would much rather be out here. At least he can breathe out here.


	92. 92: Needle

**Title**: Needle**  
>AN**: This takes place immediately after chapter 91. I don't cross-stitch myself but my mother does like crazy, especially during long car trips; I know Christmas trees are popular Christmas designs.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>While walking home, Uryuu passes by a store window with an item on display that catches his attention. Normally, he is able to ignore the lures of storefront advertisement if he even notices it at all, but today he stops and stares, frowning.<p>

The item in question is a cross-stitching kit showing the image of a Christmas tree on the cellophane wrapping. It's a little battered, branded with a rain slicker yellow sticker labeled _'CLEARANCE'_. It is small and insignificant sitting next to a pair of skis, a waffle iron and an enormous makeup kit, but it's what his eyes are drawn to, more than anything else.

In a lot of the books Uryuu has read, if sewing is mentioned at all it's often referred to as a soothing leisure activity, sort of meditative. Homework used to be soothing for Uryuu. Tidying up his room used to be meditative. They're not anymore, just simply hollow gestures. Uryuu does his homework because he has to. He cleans his room so often because he literally can not stand to see a hair out of place. Maybe something new would help him achieve something resembling a state of equilibrium.

That all sounds very appealing, but Uryuu grimaces as he remembers something else he read out of his books when sewing is mentioned.

Women sew. Men don't. When a man or a boy sews, they become the subject of ridicule, derided by their peers as effeminate. Uryuu prefers to remain beneath the radar at school and he's sure that if he was discovered to sew that would be counter-productive to that goal.

_Do I buy it or not? _Uryuu muses, staring at the display case and moving out of the way of pedestrians.

Eventually, Uryuu manages to convince himself to buy the cross-stitching kit. He reasons that if he doesn't bring it to school no one will know, and it's not like he _has _any friends to mock him if they found out he's taken up sewing anyway. And if it's only clearance it can't be very expensive; likely the store owner's been trying to get rid of it for a while.

Uryuu slips quietly into the store, taking the cross-stitching kit from the front window when it becomes apparent that it's alright to do so. He makes his way towards the cashier's desk, drinking in his surroundings as he does so. It's not a particularly nice, well-organized store; everything's jumbled together on the shelves without rhyme or reason. A huge stuffed bear maybe the size of a five-year-old child sits on the floor.

Uryuu stands in line behind two adults and (suddenly absurdly glad that he's tall enough to see over the counter, even though he has been for years) puts the kit up on the countertop of the cashier's desk when it gets to be his turn, waiting for the cashier to notice him.

The cashier, a middle-aged man with a lined face and graying hair, smiles wearily when he sees item and the one waiting to buy it. "Present for your mother?"

Ducking his head, Uryuu nods. It's easier to just let the cashier think that than explain the truth; that would take too long. He doesn't know if his mother ever sewed. For some reason, Uryuu has a hard time imagining her sewing. He doesn't know why; it's not like he ever knew her in the first place and knows next to nothing about her now, so he doesn't know what she would or wouldn't have liked to do in her spare time.

"Well, if she likes it, tell her there are about a hundred like it in the back." The cashier sighs and mutters to himself, "Can't get rid of the damned things." Uryuu winces slightly at the curse but nods silently and hands over the necessary sum.

Business done, Uryuu walks home a little more quickly than he is accustomed to doing, eager, despite himself, to see if he's able to cross-stitch at all.

-0-0-0-

"Ow."

Uryuu finds himself sucking on his finger to help with the drop of blood welling up for the third time in the past hour. Once content that the bleeding has more or less stopped, he goes back to his work, brow creasing in concentration, looking over to the instructions every half a minute.

The snowy white cloth he's stitching emerald green thread into is dotted with blood, the way Uryuu's usually white fingers are red and agitated with pinprick holes from the needle. The needle is very small, very thin, and very sharp; no matter how much Uryuu tries to avoid it, he inevitably ends up pricking a finger, letting the blood well up.

Sewing is a little more difficult than Uryuu thought it would be, but he's not about to let that stop him. He's never shied away from something because it is difficult and he's not going to start now. The instructions are straightforward and well-defined; Uryuu keeps on. He's determined to finish as he is with everything else he starts, determined to see the product of his work. It will just be a simple Christmas tree, with a green body, a brown stump and a golden star on top, but he wants to see what it looks like when he's done.

Needle, sharp and thin like a sliver of silver ice, flashes as he pushes it through the white cloth. The needle is already stained with blood and Uryuu bites his lip as he sticks himself again, smearing a bit more crimson mess over the body of the needle; he'll have to clean it when he's done.

It works. Uryuu doesn't think about the silence, his arguments with his father, his own weakness and shortcomings or anything else. All Uryuu can concentrate on is pulling needle through cloth, making sure it comes out at the right place and trying, usually without success, to keep from opening his skin on the point of the needle.

Uryuu doesn't particularly enjoy it, but it works, and he'll cling to the habit until he does.

When he holds the needle, he doesn't have to think about anything else.


	93. 93: Outlet

**Title**: Outlet**  
>AN**: This takes place just a few hours after the previous chapter.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>"Ow."<p>

Ryuuken looks up and frowns as he hears the low, rather half-hearted utterance of pain. He's left the office door open and can hear it filtering from down the hall.

"Ow."

And there it is again. Despite himself, Ryuuken can't deny that he's just a little curious about that. What on Earth is Uryuu doing to provoke a reaction of pain?

Making sure he knows what page he was on, Ryuuken closes the thick tome on specific types of skin cancer laying out on his desk. He sighs and stands, looking at the door with nothing resembling enthusiasm. Ryuuken decides to open the book back up before leaving—he'll probably forget what page he was on if he doesn't.

When he gets to Uryuu's door, Ryuuken finds it slightly ajar, providing him with the opportunity to cast his eyes within and see what Uryuu is doing. His frown deepens and he braces his hand on the doorframe, watching.

Uryuu sits perched on the very edge of his bed, hunched over a length of white cloth laid out on his lap and resembling nothing quite so much as an overgrown vulture. He has a thin sliver of a needle, glistening and yet caked with his own blood, poised over the cloth. The needle plunges into the heart of the cloth, running green thread through. The cloth is starting to show rusty red in places from where the blood-soaked needle has gone through. Uryuu goes on like this until, inevitably, he pricks his finger again and a single drop of blood falls on to the cloth.

"Ow."

Deciding that he needs to confirm whether or not he's having an especially bizarre waking dream involving Uryuu and cross-stitch (he's had stranger), Ryuuken pushes the door open and makes his presence known. "Uryuu… What are you doing?"

At that, Uryuu's head snaps up—he hadn't been aware of his father's presence until then; _How inobservant_. He rubs the needle over and over again in his hand as though it's some sort of good luck charm and licks his cracked lips. "Sewing," Uryuu answers finally, as succinctly as possible; Ryuuken can't be sure, but Uryuu might actually be saying as little as possible to minimize the chances of their conversation becoming an argument.

His response confirms that this isn't some sort of dream of Ryuuken's. If there's anything consistent at all about Uryuu's behavior in Ryuuken's dreams, it that he never talks. Not to him, anyway. Uryuu talks to others. Not to his father.

Of course, that doesn't make the situation before him any less bizarre. As much as he hates to display any level of ignorance, Ryuuken continues his line of questioning. "Since when do you sew?"

"Since today."

So this is something new. Too curious to care much if the situation devolves into an argument, Ryuuken tilts his head and presses on. "May I ask why?" People don't just start sewing out of the blue; that's not how it works. Uryuu has to have a reason for doing this.

Uryuu does what Ryuuken is always bound to find irritating, and lowers his gaze, bowing his head so his long bangs obstruct his face from view. "It's…" he smoothes the cloth with his bleeding hands, careful not to smear any more blood than what's already there "…a distraction."

An outlet then. Good enough. Ryuuken turns to leave. "Make sure to put disinfectant on your hands when you're done," he calls back towards him, heading down the hall.

"Yes, sir."

Ryuuken doesn't the catch the look of surprise on Uryuu's face at his lack of reaction.

-0-0-0-

Unable to concentrate on melanoma and basal skin cancer in the wake of the revelation of five minutes ago, Ryuuken taps a closed pen on an open page, thinking. It gets dark so early this time of year and the light from the desk lamp spills out, honey-golden, over everything it touches. His eyes follow the shadows as he thinks.

_So… Uryuu sews. _Ryuuken can imagine the way other men would react to finding out that their young son had taken up sewing. In this day and age men really don't sew anymore, at least not for leisure, and Ryuuken can imagine the reactions of others. It could be anything from the relatively reasonable _"Why?" _to the utterly _un_reasonable convictions that their son has turned into some sort of effeminate homemaker. Anything from bemused bewilderment to the rabid fury that accompanies the experience of a hard-line conservative finding out their child is gay.

Ryuuken's reaction doesn't quite fall in any of those categories.

Ryuuken could not possibly care less about what Uryuu chooses to do in his spare time, so long as he isn't hurting himself; pricking his fingers with a needle doesn't count, and if Uryuu keeps on with his sewing he'll likely get better about that over time. If Uryuu has found some sort of constructive outlet, Ryuuken is content; anything's better than going out and trying to kill Hollows, especially at his age.

It's a workable skill. If all else fails Uryuu could always get some sort of work related to sewing. At least Uryuu has some sort of practical skill (that is, if he decides this is something he likes doing); book smarts isn't going to get him anywhere on their own.

Beyond that… Beyond that, Ryuuken remembers a facet of his family history and can not help but be struck by the irony.

Before he enlisted in the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II, Uryuu's great grandfather made his living as a tailor. Coincidentally, Uryuu was named after his great grandfather. If this is going to turn into some sort of family tradition, Ryuuken would far rather his family be known as the family who produces tailors than as the family of suicidal lunatics. At least a tailor might live to see middle age, and if nothing else, Ryuuken has no desire to see Uryuu die young.

_I'll take sewing over Hollow-slaying any day._


	94. 94: Smoke

**Title**: Smoke**  
>AN**: Yes, I know the exchange at the end is covered in _House of Silences. _I've tweaked it a bit, made it fitting for my modified characterizations of Ryuuken and Uryuu. I just hope it's different enough that it doesn't bore anyone who's read that oneshot.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p><em>Maybe he'll be braver when he's older. Uryuu really hopes he'll be braver when he's older. This tremulous, hesitant child isn't who he wants to be. He doesn't want to be the one who wavers and holds back even though words are crowding in his throat, screaming to be let out.<em>

When I'm older, I'll be able to say what I think right away, _Uryuu promises himself. _I won't hold back just because I'm afraid of how he'll react when I talk to him.

_He's decided. He's been holding out on himself for ages and today, Uryuu has steeled his resolve and will speak. That his father is home far, far earlier than usual, leaning against the house and drawing a long, languorous drag off of the cigarette poised between long fingers just provides the perfect opportunity._

It was another one of those days when Ryuuken was sent home unreasonably early, and like all those other days when someone shakes their head at him and wearily says "_Go home. It's enough; you're dead on your feet. Just go home." _he would really rather not talk about it. He knows it's not enough; he doesn't want to talk about it. If he smokes a little more heavily on those days than on others, Ryuuken likes to think he has some justification for it. And if smoking is a vice, it's nothing on the scale of drowning sorrows or sliding a needle under skin to shoot up in dark places.

Thus, he's home while there is still sunlight to send down rays to warm the ground. Ryuuken's become rather unused to sunlight on his skin; he's usually buried deep within the bowels of the hospital during the bright hours. He squints against the sun and draws another deep, slow breath off of his cigarette.

Funny. When Ryuuken started smoking, he was a nineteen-year-old who coughed spasmodically on the smoke and lit up only in the shadows so he couldn't be spotted smoking underage. He needed the release, needed it desperately with the mind-bogglingly irritating Shinigami Kurosaki Isshin having taken up residence in his apartment without permission (That Ryuuken later learned to live with Isshin's presence and live with him is completely beside the point). He had needed it badly, but could only light up furtively and gagged constantly for the first six weeks.

Soken shook his head and asked why on Earth Ryuuken couldn't have waited the six more months required for his smoking to be legal (but didn't report him to police), Sayuri wheezed and refused to be around him until he agreed to cut down a little bit, and Isshin somehow remained completely ignorant of Ryuuken's newfound smoking habit until the day Ryuuken lit up in front of him.

Smoking in his apartment was apparently the height of bad taste, or something. The only one who could stand the smell was Isshin, who started up himself soon enough—and if you ask Isshin, that's been Ryuuken's _only _accomplishment in life: getting Isshin hooked on cigarettes. Eventually, Ryuuken gave in to the pleas and entreaties (that most of them came from Sayuri was probably the only reason he listened—Ryuuken was still in the "I'll do whatever you want, just please don't glare at me like that" stage of infatuation at the time) and no longer did the ash tray sit on the kitchen table. It hasn't since, and Ryuuken either smokes outside or stands at a window and sticks his head out into the cool night air. He gagged, endured ribbing, and made sure no one official-looking was watching when he smoked.

Some twenty years on, Ryuuken doesn't have to worry about the legality of taking a few quick drags anymore, and they're _not _quick. He doesn't have to worry about choking to death on the smoke anymore either, having more or less tamed his gag reflex and gotten used to the fumes. The smoke is anything but disruptive, and Ryuuken still needs the release as much as he did when he was nineteen.

Nothing else really works.

Thanks to being home during daylight, Ryuuken is greeted by the sight of Uryuu walking up towards the house.

It was raining just half an hour ago, maybe not even that far back. The humidity provides a vague, hazy smokescreen of its own, weighing down pedestrians, robbing them of full wakefulness; yawning, blinking sleep out of eyes, feeling fatigue wrap a thick, too-warm, invisible blanket around the shoulders. Puddles gleam and glisten in the watery sun, glass panels on the ground.

Ryuuken narrows his eyes and sees that Uryuu is wet. His hair, unnaturally shiny, clings to his cheeks, shirt wrinkled and plastered to his skin; he seems to have forgotten his umbrella this morning. Ryuuken looks at him and bites back a sigh. At least the book bag keeps out water relatively well; that would be a disaster if it didn't.

_Good grief. He's probably going to catch cold._

Uryuu trudges up the walk with the weariness that comes from a long day of school and being subjected to the indignity, like adding insult to injury, of having to walk home in the rain. _He should have caught a bus. I know he has the money to pay for a ticket._ His head is bowed and his glasses flash in the sun; he looks like a wrung-out dishrag, all flimsy and aching.

Then, he pauses, and looks up at Ryuuken, frowning, clear dark blue eyes focused on the cigarette lodged between his fingers.

For some bizarre reason, Ryuuken finds a source of amusement. Uryuu's face reads seriousness taken to the point of comedy. He's trying to add years to his face and the result is just clumsiness, too clumsy for words. "Yes?" Ryuuken asks, raising an eyebrow.

Uryuu pauses for a moment; if Ryuuken squints he can actually see him gathering his courage behind his eyes, can see him clinging to his ragged resolve as he has tried to do. "That's not healthy," he flatly declares, a vein his jaw twitching furiously.

His mother often said as much, though Ryuuken won't tell Uryuu that. Sayuri had been much easier to take seriously, not least because she was actually a grown adult at the time. The fact that she had grabbed one of Ryuuken's textbooks and started rattling off the long-term damages of smoking on the human body helped too. It's not like Ryuuken listened, but Sayuri had still been far more effective than her ten-year-old son.

"I've gathered that." Bone-dry humor laced with contempt like arsenic in the water flavors his words. _You'll have to do better than that._

Having said his piece, Uryuu continues walking. Ryuuken sighs out a trail of pale blue smoke and Uryuu wheezes fitfully as he opens the unlocked front door.

The vague hint of a smirk on Ryuuken's face vanishes the moment Uryuu disappears behind the door. _Another way to see her in him. Exactly what I need the least._

All he can do is take another drag and breathe in the smoke.


	95. 95: Good

**Title**: Good**  
>AN**: I did a little bit of digging, and discovered that in Japan, soccer can be referred to as either soccer or football. Mind you, these aren't exactly official web sites I went and visited, but enough of them said the same thing that I think this result can be considered reliable.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>If asked to give what he thinks is the difference between good and bad days, yes, Ishida Uryuu can quite readily differentiate between good days and bad days. Whether he'll tell you what he thinks the difference is, well that's another matter entirely.<p>

A good day is a quiet day. On a good day, Uryuu goes to school and he doesn't feel like the world is conspiring to make him dizzy. Lessons are pleasant, he is as invisible as ever, and nothing out of the ordinary happens. Lunch (a sandwich, adorned with whatever Uryuu can find in the refrigerator) is eaten quickly and in silence. Recess is spent reading or doing homework underneath a tree while the others run about, kicking a soccer ball or playing with jump ropes, diving for cover in the shade to avoid a sunburn.

On a good day, when school lets out, it isn't raining. Uryuu likes the rain well enough, but doesn't like having to walk in it, even if he does have an umbrella. He doesn't like the way it feels when his socks get wet, the cold, clammy feeling. So on a good day, it's sunny, or cloudy. Maybe a little bit of wind to relieve him of the sensation of stagnancy that staying in the school all day brings.

He steps through the front door of home and he doesn't feel like he's going to choke on the shadows that cling to the foundations. He can stand the past, accept the present and face the future. It's a quiet night, occupied with the business of homework, getting a solitarily eaten supper off of anything that can be found in the refrigerator or in the pantry (that list is starting to get a bit slim). If the time when Uryuu gets a moment to himself is not a ridiculously late hour, it's devoted to a bit of needlework. He's recently branched out into knitting, though he's not yet very good at it; more and more, Uryuu is experiencing interest in the process of sewing together clothes, though he is for now restricting himself to cross-stitch and knitting long lengths of cloth, citing a lack of funds.

On the best of days, Uryuu experiences no nightmares. On the best of days, he and Ryuuken can be in the same room without one of them bringing something up that inevitably makes the atmosphere spark in arguing. On the best of days, Uryuu doesn't feel his heart throbbing in his throat, not even once.

This is what would be ideal. If all days were like this, Uryuu thinks he would be a happy boy, or if not happy than at least content. It is also a bold-faced lie. It is a lie because Uryuu has never had a day exactly like that. Some will come close, oh so very close, but something happens to make it all worthless. Not rain or difficult homework or pricking his finger on a needle (Uryuu doesn't do that too often anymore, and knitting needles are far more difficult to stick yourself with, but it still happens). That's not enough. Other things.

On bad days, there is rain (_not polite, delicate little showers, but downpours with thunder and lightning and raindrops like bullets_) and disrupted sleep (_thrashing about in bed, thanking whatever higher power might exist on the occasion that he doesn't remember what he was dreaming about_) and bickering (_Words to bruise, words to wound, words to pierce the heart_).

On bad days, Uryuu is not ignored by his classmates when he is at school. Sure, he's still mostly see-through, but there are one or two who get bored entirely too easily and go trolling for meat during recess. Apparently short + pale + quiet + glasses = target.

Thankfully, there is a surefire way of getting rid of them. Uryuu has long since known that Ryuuken has a habit of looking at people who annoy him like they're an insect, something so incomprehensibly insignificant that the fact that they register on his radar at all is a system malfunction. He has the most bone-chilling glares of anyone Uryuu has ever met, capable of making others feel small and threatened, and Uryuu couldn't help but pick up a few things along the way. Everyone has since learned that the creepy kid with glasses who never talks has the coldest glare and the most piercing blue eyes when he chooses to lift them off the ground; he doesn't have to talk to give the impression that if he is not left alone, it will not go well for his persecutor. At all. The only ones who bother Uryuu anymore are the very new and the very stupid.

On bad days, the house is a place of memories entombed within the walls. Everywhere Uryuu casts his eyes he sees names engraved in the walls, the same few over and over again. His mother (_Just Okaasan because he doesn't even know her name to label her_), his grandfather, names he's made up for more distant ancestors whom, though he never knew them, contribute to the clutter as well. There are so many that the names are all he can see, delicate kanji inscribed on wood, and Uryuu feels like he is breathing in death. He can barely breathe because the others use up all the oxygen. There's no room for the living.

On the worst of days, there comes the nightmares. In succession, matter-of-fact and unforgiving, Uryuu is not allowed to forget his fears, his failures. He sits up in bed in the dark, bites down on his lip and blinks furiously to keep from crying. If he cries, it might attract his father's attention, and that is far from being what Uryuu wants.

And his father…

On the worst of days, Uryuu and Ryuuken can not be in the same room at the same time. If they exist in each other's worlds and see each other's spectrums, they can do nothing but go for the other's throat. The arguments are still veiled, but they are becoming increasingly vicious and petty. The only mercy is one Uryuu doesn't understand, that he and his father, though they know all the tender spots, all the secret scars and all hidden wounds, don't go for those. At least not directly. It's not much of a mercy, but it's something.

On the worst of days, Uryuu is completely helpless. On the worst of days, he will retreat into his room, retreat into the most private of private worlds, and find some measure of comfort only in cross-stitch; knitting isn't what he does for comfort. Slide a needle through cloth, eye the powder blue thread to see that all is going well, and hope beyond hope that tomorrow will be better.

_Just give me a good day tomorrow. Just give me a good day._

He dreads sleep, and tries to think of needle and thread when he shuts his eyes.


	96. 96: Reversal

**Title**: Reversal**  
>AN**: Can you say role reversal? Kind of an aside, this chapter.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>If Ryuuken recalls, the definition of the term passive-aggressive is something along the lines of "the expression of resentment or aggression in an unassertive way, such as through stubbornness or a refusal to communicate." With a flourish of the pen and a few irritated lines digging into his forehead, Ryuuken can't help but think that the term describes Uryuu perfectly, as the child presses the plate towards him again.<p>

This is maybe the third or fourth time Uryuu has done this in the past few months. Ryuuken remembers the very first time—it was not so recent, some years back. Uryuu pushing open the door with his shoulder, jerking Ryuuken out of thoughts driven deep into the past. A seven-year-old boy with a burn on his hand, timidly proffering micro-waved ravioli and being promptly rejected. Cowed, Uryuu had retreated immediately after Ryuuken had told him he wasn't hungry.

Uryuu is not quite the ridiculously timid child he used to be anymore. Far from being that, he is a just-about eleven-year-old who's once again starting to show signs of having a spine, even if he is still flighty. The first three or four times in the past two months that he came in with food and asked his father if he was hungry, Uryuu left when told to, but this time he isn't giving up.

Ryuuken meets the gaze of stony blue eyes (Uryuu is actually looking him in the eye for once) and bites back a sigh. He's too tired for this, he keeps telling himself, too tired for a prolonged argument, but goes on anyway. "I made myself clear the first time. Unless your hearing is deficient—" Ryuuken's tongue is particularly barbed at this "—which I suspect it is not, you should understand. I'm not hungry, Uryuu."

And just to drive home the point that he has remembered he has a spine, Uryuu does not waver. He continues to stand near his father's desk, holding a plate with a sandwich on it. "I know you haven't eaten," he half-mutters, the twitch at the left side of his mouth the only hint that his resolve might not be as steadfast as it first seems. _In a while_, comes a silent addendum.

_Taken to watching my eating habits, have you? How charmingly invasive—and perverse._

Uryuu is hardly the first in Ryuuken's life to have tried to get him to eat something—if anything he's carrying on what can only be described as a rather morbid family tradition.

To be perfectly honest, Ryuuken has never seen much use for more food than what he needs. He only eats when he's hungry (sometimes not even then), and he isn't hungry very often. Just a little bit of something, usually bread or maybe cheese, and he's fine for a long while yet afterwards. Ryuuken just doesn't notice hunger the way others do.

Of course, others eventually notice that he doesn't eat nearly as much as they do, and point it out. He's had his mother, his wife, Isshin, Masaki and now Uryuu try to get him to eat something at least once, all with the same brow-furrowed looks on their faces. All worried, even if some aren't willing to admit it.

The same face, to show that Uryuu feels some worry, even if he won't admit it.

Deciding that the most likely way of getting Uryuu to go away and quit looking at him like that (_skin drawn tight and ashen, brow furrowed and lip twitching, wearing the face of someone old and anxious_) is to relent, Ryuuken sighs and sets the pen down. "Alright. If I eat, will you be satisfied?" he asks tiredly.

Uryuu's only response to extend the plate again and frown seriously at him. His opinion on the matter is crystal clear.

The bread is dry and separated by pieces of cold chicken. _Since when do we have chicken? _Ryuuken wonders numbly while chewing, until realizing that Uryuu must have bought some at a grocery store. Ryuuken eats it quickly, surprised to discover that he actually was hungry after all. _Amazing how you don't notice that until you're eating._

Uryuu takes the plate back when Ryuuken is done and all the latter can think is—_charming; now he's turning into my _mother _too. I never said I _wanted _to see ghosts in Uryuu's skin, you know._

(Here's the thing. Whenever someone has tried to get Ryuuken to eat, he's never acquiesced easily. However, when a sharp, even scolding gleam comes into Uryuu's eyes, Ryuuken is shocked to see some hint of his mother at her most stern sitting there. He'll do anything to get that gleam out of Uryuu's eyes.)

Pen goes back to scratching against paper, and though Ryuuken knows that this will likely happen again—_the next time Uryuu notices that he hasn't eaten in over a day_—he hopes that next time, the only face he'll see is Uryuu's.


	97. 97: Stopped

**Title**: Stopped**  
>AN**: I don't have much to say about this one. Read on and enjoy.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>It's taken him a long time, entirely too long, to come to this point, to have come to the realization that he has. Uryuu has a hard time wrenching himself away from his mindsets, but when he does, though the breaks are far from clean, he can quite clearly see the difference between what he thought was true then, and what he knows to be true now. The difference is all too evident.<p>

A normal night again, Uryuu has done his homework and eaten a sparse supper made up of whatever he can find. The shadows have grown long, the sky deeply ruddy, and Uryuu is alone with his thoughts, his knitting needles, and the house.

_Careful_, Uryuu tells himself, as navy blue and snowy white thread is knitted together. _Don't want to get tangled up again. _He is sitting not on his bed, as he often does when working with needle and thread, but in the chair in the living room. Uryuu will venture outside of his room when he's alone in the house, and a chair is a better venue for knitting than a bed.

His reason for knitting tonight is to see if he can make a scarf that won't fall apart upon being finished. Uryuu is getting tired of his winter clothes (jacket, gloves, scarf) all being gray. A little color would be nice, and he does like these colors.

Often he has found himself sitting in the living room alone in the evenings. Uryuu can tell you that this sort of activity has spent up a large portion of his life, the business of sitting in silence and finding something to occupy the hours. There is a difference tonight, however. Tonight, Uryuu's eyes don't watch the window, waiting for a wash of golden light to spill over the darkened panes. Tonight, he doesn't keep an ear trained for the roll of car tires on pavement.

_Time to stop waiting._

It wasn't an immediate decision. Uryuu didn't decide one night that he wasn't going to try to sit up anymore. The way sand slips from an hourglass, leaving less and less at the top, he began to fall asleep on the couch waiting less and less often. It went from every other night to once a week, to once every other week, to once a month, and gradually, Uryuu realized that he had stopped waiting altogether. He wasn't sitting on the couch until he fell asleep anymore. He wasn't waiting for his father to come home anymore.

Uryuu has learned a few things. It took a while to sink in, but he has learned.

He's learned that if it's still dark and Ryuuken isn't home, he's not going to be home before Uryuu falls asleep. He just isn't. Uryuu knows his father too well, knows that he takes the phrase "burning the midnight oil" all too literally. He knows that his work is what Ryuuken places first. That's not going to change.

So he doesn't wait anymore. Uryuu doesn't know if he has stopped out of practicality or some attempt to be spiteful, and doesn't care—if it's practicality then all the better and if it's spite, then that means nothing; Uryuu knows Ryuuken won't notice his spite unless he's spitting it in his face.

Uryuu doesn't see why he should wait anymore. Ryuuken doesn't notice beyond the act of pulling his glasses off when he's found asleep on the couch, and frankly doesn't seem to care. He's too wrapped up in his own world, of healing the wounded and attending to the sick, to care much about what he leaves behind each morning. As much is not said, but it doesn't have to be; as the old saying goes, actions speak louder than words. As Uryuu's personal saying goes "Absence speaks all."

He won't wait anymore. There's no point at all. Ryuuken's near-constant absence tells Uryuu all he will ever need to know. Waiting hurts entirely too much, and hurts all the more when Uryuu knows that it's pointless.

He won't. Not again.

_Eventually, Ryuuken does have to notice._

_Having become accustomed to Uryuu being asleep on the couch when he gets home, whether consciously or not, Ryuuken has gotten into the habit of opening and shutting the front door as quietly as he can. It wouldn't do to wake Uryuu up, not at this time of night. He has school in the morning and children need far more sleep than adults._

_Except Uryuu's not there anymore._

_When finally Ryuuken notices, he can only think that it's probably better that Uryuu's sleeping in his bed as opposed to on the couch. A mattress is certainly more comfortable than couch cushions, and Uryuu is guaranteed to hear his alarm clock going off if he's asleep in his bed._

_If there's anything within him resembling regret, Ryuuken ignores it. It does him no service._


	98. 98: Ten

**Title**: Ten**  
>AN**: Nothing to say.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>With that odd shrinking aura clinging to every inch of his skin, Uryuu only has to take one look at his father to know that it's that time of year again. An unenthusiastic powdering of snow only partially camouflages the grass this winter, Christmas came and went a few days ago, and Ryuuken is unnaturally subdued, not even noticing to scold Uryuu when he accidentally knocks a glass off the counter. The glass shatters into a sea of ice water and coldly glittering shards, and Ryuuken never notices.<p>

_I hate it when he gets like this…_

Though Uryuu could not, for lack of information, pinpoint the exact date, of course he knows what's going on. He knows why his father behaves this way at the close of the year, knows what is making him quiet and gloomy, knows what's robbed him of all his sharp edges.

_I wonder how often he wishes she was still alive. I wonder how much._

Through some admittedly hazy calculations, Uryuu supposes that this winter marks ten years since his mother died. _Ten years, _he realizes numbly. _That has to be it._

If there is something Uryuu has always been curious about, it's how his mother died. Admitting that brings around a not-inconsiderable pall of shame, which is why he never asked his grandfather while he was still living. Uryuu has some sense that this curiosity is inappropriate, even perverse; no matter how much it burns, he keeps his mouth clamped shut.

Uryuu could ask his father, but he won't. Most of the year such an admission would be born of fear, but not right now. Uryuu knows that this is the one time of the year when he can ask his father anything and that, even if he doesn't get an answer, he won't be met by coldness either. This time of the year, Ryuuken loses the capacity to argue or be cold. He's not cold, angry, barbed, he's not any of these things; he's just _there_. A little flat, a lot melancholy, and quite subdued.

It doesn't matter. Ryuuken's lack of acerbic sarcasm in the depths of the December winter doesn't matter. Uryuu won't ask the question. No matter how much curiosity eats at him, all he has to do is look at him, sitting on the couch, holding open a book but not really reading it, eyes unmoving, and know just how cruel a question that would be.

Even with what things between them has become, Uryuu can't help but feel sorry for his father. Things used to be so much worse, as far as Ryuuken's behavior around the winter goes. Uryuu can, if he strains, remember from his early childhood, times when Ryuuken would become all but unresponsive. He would walk around the house, mostly normal, then Uryuu would watch as a shadow would fall over his face and his eyes grew so far away. Uryuu always felt so small when he watched this strange transformation; it wasn't until he caught some snatches of conversation between his father and his grandfather that he realized why, and then that feeling of being so small was replaced with a cold lump in his stomach.

Any grief for his mother is vague and half-detached, thanks to Uryuu's sheer lack of knowledge about her. She never quite comes across as real to him. He looks at the picture of that woman who looks so much like him, who has the same eyes, and Uryuu has difficulty making the connection between this distant, pretty, smiling woman and the image he has of _Mother_. There's just nothing to her. No substance. Nothing to draw on.

Instead, what empathy Uryuu can give his father is based on a grief far more fresh. He doesn't withdraw into a deep depression a week out of each summer, but the pain and the horror are still there, all too fresh and potent. He feels sympathy for anyone who has to endure the same; Ryuuken is no exception. This is how Uryuu knows his father's still human, that he can feel, that he can grieve and be dragged down by grief. This is the time of year Uryuu dreads the most, because even if Ryuuken's at his least-threatening, he's not himself when he's like this, but it's good to know he's human.

Of course, this is the time of year Uryuu dreads the most for another reason as well.

It's not just how she died that piques Uryuu's curiosity; far from it. In the chill, quiet hours that surround the house in a haze in deep winter, Uryuu wants to know everything about his mother. The vague prickling of grief is joined by something far less vague: a strange, intense longing, the want to know what her voice sounded like, what her hair smelled like, where the lines would spring up on her face when she laughed (_If she laughed at all_).

Simply put, there is no limit to what Uryuu wants to know about his mother. Anything he could glean would make him happy—her name, some hint of her personality, her background, her family. How she interacted with others, whether she was sociable or not, how long she'd stayed in school. It would be nice to know what she had thought of him, her lullabies, if there was any love there at all.

Reality limits him; Uryuu knows that. Unless something drastic happens he's never going to hear the answers to these questions, because there's only one person he can ask, and no matter _what _mood Ryuuken's in, he won't answer. Uryuu isn't practiced enough in self-deception to try to tell himself otherwise.

From the kitchen table, Uryuu watches his father sitting on the couch. Ryuuken has given up the pretense of trying to read and stares out the window, face unreadable and as frozen as snow.

Looking at him, Uryuu feels a knot tighten in his throat. _Is that what I'm going to be when ten years have gone from Grandfather dying? Am I going to be like him, still feeling grief so heavy on my shoulders that I can't do anything if I think about it at all? _It's like staring into a distorted mirror; the image that reflects out isn't exactly the truth, but it's close enough to frighten, to terrify. There's no thought that puts quite so much pressure on Uryuu or quite so much fear in his heart as the thought that one day, he might be like this.

_Please don't tell me I'm going to be like him some day. _All Uryuu sees right now is a flat, pale shadow of a man, something that both does and doesn't give the image of being fully human. Some creature completely dominated by grief, unable to see anything but the narrow world he's set up in order to cope and rejecting anything that deviates from his norms. Uryuu wants nothing less than to be anything like that.

Still, he can't help but feel sorry for him when he sees him like that. If Ryuuken was a little more approachable, if their relationship wasn't what it is, maybe Uryuu go over to where he sits and try to talk to him, try to offer some measure of comfort even if he is completely inadequate to give it. He might show some sign of his own grief, however vague it is, for the one who's passed, and just try.

But it's not. Ryuuken preys on the slightest weakness the way a Hollow preys on those with spiritual power. Uryuu has no chance when his father's nature shows no sign of changing. And even if Ryuuken didn't, Uryuu still wouldn't approach. Even if Ryuuken completely forgets his scathing words at this time of year, he would still swat Uryuu's hand away if he tried to touch him, just as unwilling to show weakness as to tolerate it in others.

_If you would just let me try…_

Reality limits him, as always.


	99. 99: Omamori

**Title**: Omamori**  
>AN**: The previous funeral I refer to is the funeral in chapter 54. Also, an omamori is a protective amulet dedicated to a Shinto deity or a specific Buddhist figure. An omamori is typically an object such as a piece of paper, wood or cloth with a prayer written on it, blessed by a priest.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p><em>It's amazing, <em>Uryuu muses, sitting in one of the pews in the funeral home, _that I have so many distant relatives, but only one family member._

Once again, the funeral is of some distant relative of Ryuuken's, someone Uryuu has never met. A woman this time, much younger than the last decedent. She can't have been any older than twenty-five with long, straight, dark hair and a plain green dress. The crowd for this woman's funeral is noticeably larger than what it was for the old man's five years ago.

Uryuu can't help but feel a little more curiosity over this woman's death as opposed to the old man's. For one thing, he's not recovering from a nasty case of the flu this time around—though he has had a thick, phlegmy cough for the past few days and other symptoms that have left Ryuuken muttering "sinus infection"—and for another, whereas the dead man at the funeral some years past was in his gray hairs, this woman was so young. Uryuu likes to think that if she had been killed by a Hollow she wouldn't appear so intact, and she shows no sign of having been struck down with wasting illness, so Uryuu has to wonder just how she died.

_Some sort of accident? _he speculates to himself, fiddling with the hem of his coat and listening to the rain falling on the roof. A thunderclap makes the windowpanes rattle at the same time that the lights flicker. _Did she get sick? _The thoughts of murder and suicide Uryuu does not address directly; even as immersed in the culture of death as he is, he has no desire to dwell on the aesthetics of bullets and pills.

Ryuuken's caught, like a fish floundering in the fisherman's net, in conversation with a late-middle-aged couple. Uryuu recognizes the look on his face as one of cool politeness stretched to its limit; he can't help but think that if the couple knew Ryuuken a little better than they apparently do, they'd either change the subject or move away altogether. It's not hard to see that that's what Ryuuken wishes they would do.

Himself, Uryuu sits in the second pew from the front on the right hand side of the funeral home, trying to draw as little attention to himself as possible, covering his coughs as best he can. He does not want to be talked to, does not wish to be approached.

He is anyway.

The sight of a young girl breaking away from the crowd surrounding the casket, eyes trained on him, leaves Uryuu restraining the urge to groan. Well, no; he's not restraining the urge to groan so much as the urge to run away. He is no more comfortable with socialization in this setting than he is in school, stores or anywhere else. _Maybe she's just going to the bathroom, _his mind suggest hopefully, _or to the vending machine to get something to drink._

No such luck. Instead of heading up the gap in between the aisles as one would to retreat to the lobby, the girl makes a beeline towards Uryuu. Her hands are closed around something he can't make out—a brief flash of green and nothing else. Without ceremony and without asking, she sits down beside him and smiles brightly out of an ingenuous face. "Hi, I'm Hikari. What's your name?"

Uryuu doesn't answer her right away, a little too stunned by the fact that another child is willingly talking to him, and not to harass him, to give an immediate response. Instead, he uses the opportunity provided by speechlessness to take a quick catalogue of her appearance.

The girl is well-grown and tall, but shorter than Uryuu, and if he had to guess he'd say she's no older than nine, maybe a small ten. She has black curls going past her shoulders and bright brown eyes. Her tan is made to appear sallow by a coal gray dress and black tights and sweater. Uryuu notices how her dress is just a little shabby; he feels all the more self-conscious in his own relatively new, freshly ironed clothes.

Eventually, Uryuu manages a stiff nod. "Hello," he murmurs, staring at the ground. "It's Ishida… Uryuu," he adds after a moment of indecision, reasoning it would be rude to give his surname but not his given name too.

Hikari swings her legs to and fro, choppy movements speaking of energy entirely too pent in. "Are you from around here?"

By "here", Hikari is referring to Nakano City in the east of Tokyo, and Uryuu shakes his head. "No, he answers shortly, "I'm from Karakura Town."

At this, her big smile falters and cracks and she bites her lip, fidgeting. "Oh… Okay." Her voice has dropped a few octaves too, and uncertainty rings clear there. Now every bit as uncomfortable as Uryuu, Hikari opens her hands and holds the object previously hidden towards him. "Umm, listen, my mom carries a lot of these around with her. She wanted you to have one, for your health—she says you were sick the last time you were here, and that you might want one."

Hikari presses a bit of cloth into Uryuu's hands and when he turns it over, his brow furrows. _An omamori, _his mind registers blankly. It's an omamori made of smooth emerald green silk, with the prayer stitched in gold thread. "…Thank you?" Uryuu isn't entirely sure how the reply became a question, but it is what it is. He tucks the little omamori in his pocket. Ryuuken isn't terribly religious, at least not as far as Uryuu knows; he's not sure how his father would react to the sight of an omamori.

Somehow, this expression of gratitude, however hollow and inadequate it may be, is enough to put the smile back on Hikari's face. "You're welcome!" she chirps. "Mom also says you need to take it to a shrine at the end of the year so it won't give you bad luck."

"O…Okay, I'll do that."

With another booming thunderclap, the lights go out and this time, they don't turn back on in a second. Hikari and a good many other children yelp, Uryuu frowns and wonders why they do that when light still filters in through the window, and over the sudden clamor he hears a weary sigh that he's sure belongs to Ryuuken.

Something, no matter how morbid it may be, occurs to Uryuu and when Hikari has calmed back down, he turns to her and gathers his courage to ask a question. "Umm, Hikari-san? Do you know how the woman in the casket died?" he asks shyly, eyes transfixed on the carpeting again.

For a long moment he gets no answer, and for all the world Uryuu expects to get a horrified response going something like _"That's so creepy? Why do you want to know about that?"_. Then, Hikari's voice breaks through the downpour outside.

"I heard my aunt and uncle talking about it," she whispers, clenching her skirt in her small fingers, "about Akina-san. They said her fiancé, whatever a fiancé is, they said he shot her."

"Oh."

Uryuu rather wishes he hadn't asked.


	100. 100: Tea

**Title**: Tea**  
>AN**: Here's the 100th chapter! Triple digits for the win (Or something like that). On a rather more "lame-o!" note, the subject matter of this chapter is a bit… _tame_. I originally had something a bit more "plot relevant", if you can call a slice-of-life story something that has a plot, for the 100 spot, but as I've said, my outline is forever expanding, so this got put in instead. So yeah. The 100th chapter is about tea. Yeah. Also on a rather frustrating note, when I upload documents just about everything that's been done in italics somehow gets mashed together.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>Sometimes, Uryuu will wake up in the morning and his father will still be at home. Most days, as with today, that happens because Uryuu wakes up earlier than what his alarm clock dictates and can't get back to sleep. Rarely, very rarely, it might be because Ryuuken is running late (<em>hurried,<em>_ with __a __distinctly __unfinished __air __about __him __and _definitely _not __to __be__ approached_), but not today. Uryuu rolls over and through his near-sighted eyes makes out the time to be 5:38. Ryuuken is definitely not running late today.

Especially tired, aches reverberating up his spine, Uryuu would try to go back to sleep this morning. He doesn't have to get up until six; even if he didn't fall asleep he could at least get a little more rest. Not today. Today, Uryuu is kept from sleep when he catches a strange smell wafting from the direction of the kitchen.

Ryuuken drinks coffee in the morning, every morning. He has for as long as Uryuu can remember. As far as Uryuu knows, he drinks it black, without sweeteners of any kind—Ryuuken doesn't seem to like sweet things very much at all. Either he drinks a _lot_ of coffee in the mornings or he just empties out the kettle after having his cup, because when Uryuu comes into the kitchen after he's gone, though the aroma of coffee remains, the kettle is empty. The residual smell permeating the house is the only evidence that he was ever there.

Eyes settling on his door, Uryuu frowns, wondering what that smell is. Eventually, curiosity overcomes the common sense that screams at him to wait until Ryuuken has gone to investigate, and he reaches for his glasses, clambers out of bed, and heads for the kitchen.

It's not a long walk, and as he nears the kitchen Uryuu realizes that what he smells is tea. When he reaches the kitchen and finds his father at the table, drinking a cup, all he can do is stare.

_Since when does he drink tea?_

Absorbed deep in the newspaper and not quite fully awake himself, Ryuuken doesn't at first notice his skinny, bleary-eyed child burning holes into the side of his head. It's still dark outside and the overhead fixture has been turned on to provide a little light; the result is to wash them both out, making them appear much flimsier than they in actuality are. Uryuu hesitates, seriously considering taking the opportunity borne from the fact that Ryuuken hasn't noticed him standing there to go back to bed, but by the time he convinces himself to do so, it's too late.

The kettle on the stove gives a little sniff of steam as Ryuuken turns his eyes towards Uryuu. "Yes?" Fatigue takes most of the sharp edge out of his voice, but there's still a little bit there, enough for Uryuu to feel pressure on his skin and the need to put up an impassive mask over naked curiosity.

Curiosity still shines through, though. "I…" Uryuu clenches his jaw and forces himself to look his father in the eye; _This__ is __not __an __argument, __not __yet __anyway; __we__'__re __not __fighting __so __I __shouldn__'__t __have __to __have __trouble __looking __him in __the __eye_"…I thought you didn't like tea," he explains lamely, voice lowered.

Ryuuken huffs a little. "What on Earth gave you that idea?" He takes a deep draught out of his cup for emphasis.

"Well you never drink it," Uryuu retorts defensively, jerking backwards and falling, without meaning to, into a defensive posture, shoulders squared.

Perhaps mercifully, Ryuuken does not rise to the unintentional bait. "I don't, not under normal circumstances anyway," he remarks in a stunningly conversational tone of voice, fingertips poised on each side of the ceramic cup. "You may or may not recall, but your grandfather made very good tea; the problem is that he never would tell anyone what he was using to make it, since he made it from scratch, and he didn't leave anything behind to say. Nothing tastes quite the same, but this comes close. Now, it was your _mother _who didn't like tea," he goes on, and Uryuu gapes at him, amazed that he's actually talking about her willingly. "She…" Ryuuken's voice trails off as he catches himself. His eyes glaze over and he says not another word, going back to drinking his tea in silence.

Uryuu frowns at him, not pretending to not be surprised by Ryuuken's several admissions. _But__… __he__ never __talks __about __Mother,_ Uryuu keeps telling himself, and when he gets over that part, he reflects that it is exceptionally rare for Ryuuken to talk about his own past at all, even rarer for Ryuuken to refer to Soken as someone who really existed, and rarer still for the tone he takes when discussing his father to not be derisive and insulting.

Overcoming whatever hesitation he had, Uryuu goes over to the kettle. He reaches for a glass out of a cupboard, and pours some of the tea into the glass, about half-full. One gulp later Uryuu sees what Ryuuken was talking about. It's alright; good, but not the same. It can never be the same, and Uryuu feels his throat go just a little tight.

Blue eyes turn back to Ryuuken, and Uryuu almost lifts his voice into speech, but the will dies in him almost as soon as its conceived. Uryuu has no faith in his ability to talk to his father for an extended length of time without it degenerating into an argument.

But he has learned something, and as Uryuu retreats back to his room to get dressed and ready for school, he wonders why there can't be more days like these.


	101. 101: Promotion

**Title**: Promotion**  
>AN**: I think it was pretty obvious the point Soken was trying to make in the flashback in chapter 124 and here, but Uryuu can't really be blamed for not being able to see the connection. Also, thanks to the little "all italics being pressed together and me having to go in and separate them one by one", the word count has been extended considerably.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>His skin still stings from the words exchanged all of three hours ago. The usual recriminations, all things Uryuu is very much used to, but still incapable of not being hurt by. <em>If <em>_I __ever __managed __not __to __respond, __would __he __stop? _he wonders to himself, turning over in bed in the attempt to find a comfortable position. _Probably __not,_ Uryuu decides. _It __would __probably __just __make __him__ angrier._

Still, rising to the bait isn't getting him anywhere either.

"_When are you going to accept that living with half of your mind floating up among the clouds isn't going to get you anywhere?"_

"_What__'__s _that _supposed __to __mean?__"_

It's true that Uryuu does not always pay the greatest amount of attention to the world around him. Usually, he's wishing that he could bring his needle and thread (cross-stitch and knitting have, hands down, become his new favorite hobbies) with him to school, or it's the jolt of picking up on a Hollow attack again that leaves him preoccupied, or he's still stewing from the last verbal grudge match he had with his father. Uryuu has the bad luck of often being in the same vicinity as his father in the midst of his worst zone-outs—focusing on the present isn't something pleasant within the confines of that house.

_But __I __don__'__t __always __have __my__ head __in __the __clouds. __Why __do __you__ think __I __do? _There was a warning note in Ryuuken's voice that quickly shifted to stern reprisal. Arms folded across his chest, eyes narrowed and hard and dull as old, scratched marbles, voice brittle yet almost lazily stern. To that, Uryuu couldn't help but respond, and it only got worse from there.

"_Such an impassioned defense. If one didn't know better one would think you were covering for something."_

And what is _that_ supposed to mean? _Uryuu__ all __but __snaps __again, __gritting __his __teeth __to __keep __from__ saying __it. __Too __late __has __he __realized __that __attempting __to __defend __himself __is __only __digging __deeper __into __the __hole __he __already __finds __himself __in._

For once, what's keeping Uryuu up is not sadness or worry or fear, but frustration, through and through. Wondering what it will take to keep Ryuuken from spotting out and putting to the air every little flaw he has, and despairing of ever finding something that will work. _Why__ am__ I __even__ bothering?__ He__'__s __impossible __to __please; __why __am __I __even __bothering._

Uryuu knows the answer to that, even if he doesn't like to admit it to himself.

He flips over in bed again, squirming to get his head more firmly on the pillow. Uryuu doesn't know why he's having to toss and turn so much tonight. Even if he has trouble sleeping at the best of times, the bed has never been anything less than comfortable. He turns over, and that's when he sees light under his door.

A sliver of dull golden light seeps under Uryuu's door and through the cracks on the sides, though he doubts this is what is keeping him up. When he sleeps it can be in total darkness or total light; either will do. It does make him curious though, and after a moment's hesitation, checking the clock to see a reading of 12:19, Uryuu reaches for his glasses and gets out of bed.

His original intention is to simply find what light has been left on and turn it off before going back to bed. It's probably the bathroom light; that seems to be the light most likely to be left on in the middle of the night. However, when Uryuu sticks his head out the door, the dim flood of light is not coming from the direction of the bathroom; instead, it comes from the office.

_Here we go._

Uryuu gets to the open door and finds exactly what he expected. Ryuuken asleep at his desk, head pillowed against an open book, glasses digging deep into his skin. He is completely ignorant both of the desk lamp left on and his new observer. Uryuu stands in the doorway, one hand, curled into a fist, pressing against the door frame, and frowns pensively, eyes narrowing.

"_Though __it __is __admirable, __Uryuu, __I __think __you __will __find__ that __trying __to __protect __everyone __is __a __little __too __general __an __agenda.__"_

_Uryuu has wiped his eyes, managed to fight down the hiccupy sobs, and now he and his grandfather are heading back towards civilization. The sun's starting to go down and the last thing Uryuu wants is for his father to beat him home again. The last thing Uryuu wants is a repeat performance of last night._

_He looks up through still-bloodshot eyes and frowns at his grandfather. "What do you mean?"_

_At__ this, __Soken __stops __walking __and __puts __a __hand__ on __his __shoulder; __Uryuu __meets __his __gaze __without __trouble, __as __he __can__ with__ no __one __else.__ "__Uryuu__… __No__ one __person __can __protect __everyone __else __in __the __world. __It __won__'__t __work. __If __you __try __it __will __destroy__ you. __I __believe __the __term__ "__crash__ and __burn__" __is __the __one __you__'__re __wanting.__"_

_The__ child __is __sure __that __this __is __some __sort __of __attempt __on __his __grandfather__'__s __part __to __comfort __him, __but __doesn__'__t __know__ exactly __how __Soken __is __trying __to __go __around __it.__ "__But __what __about _them_?__" __he__ asks, __desperation __putting __a__ sour __flavor __in __his __voice.__ "__You __think __I __shouldn__'__t __do __anything __to __help __them__ when __they__'__re __in __trouble?__"_

_Soken__ smiles__ gently.__ "__That__'__s __not __what __I __meant, __Uryuu,__" __he __replies __softly.__ "__Not __at __all. __All __I __mean __is __that __you __should __seek __to __protect __the __ones __you __care __about __before __you __worry __about __everyone__ else. __If __those __you __care __about __aren__'__t __in __danger __but __a__ stranger __is, __then __by __all __means __go __to __the __aid__ of__ the__ stranger, __but __if __the __situation __is __otherwise, __those __whom __you __love __will __always__ come __first.__"_

_Uryuu nods to signify that he understands. "You, then? And Father?" he asks seriously._

_The old man's grip on his shoulder tightens slightly at this, and a strange look comes into Soken's eyes. Not happy, not sad, not amused, not angry. Uryuu can't tell what's going through his mind. "I pray that it never comes to that," he answers him quietly. "It is the responsibility of a parent to protect their child, Uryuu. Not the other way around."_

Uryuu doesn't know why he's thinking about that now, of all times, when the last thing he ever wants to find himself dwelling on is his shrunken family. Maybe, he supposes, maybe it's got something to do with the slip of paper he found laying out on the kitchen table yesterday.

Though he doesn't know how precisely good a doctor Ryuuken is, Uryuu supposes he must be exceptionally devoted to the work of healing. He spends long, long hours at the hospital, and when he comes home he shuts himself up in his office, going over charts and statistics and books over and over again so it's all fresh in his mind, to the point of forsaking food and sleep.

"_The thing Father wants to protect, what is it? Is it money?" Uryuu inquires, unable to keep the sharp note out of his voice. This matter plays with his mind until all he can think about is the curiosity to know his father's motivations._

_Soken stops again, staring straight ahead, and he doesn't respond for what seems an eternity. Then, he looks at Uryuu, a long, heavy glance, and Uryuu lets out a squeak of surprise when Soken puts a hand on his head._

"_Some day…" His voice is weary, the undercurrents of sadness all too clear "…you'll know some day…"_

All those years ago, Uryuu's thoughts as to what Ryuuken wanted to protect had run in the direction of money. Though he doesn't blame himself for thinking like that back then, Uryuu knows better now.

Ryuuken takes no joy, no special pride in anything. He does not appreciate having his ability as a doctor impugned, but that is as far as it goes. Uryuu doesn't think he's ever seen his father truly happy, doesn't think he's ever seen him take joy and pride in anything. Though he wishes it otherwise, Uryuu doesn't think he'll ever know what his grandfather meant that day. He doesn't know what his father wants to protect, because as far as he knows, his father doesn't place especial value on anything.

Drawing his tongue across his lips, Uryuu stares down at his father, asleep at the desk. He doesn't look like a man who's just gotten a promotion at work (_Ryuuken __said __nothing __about __this __and __gave __no __indication __as __to __a__ shift __in __his __emotional __outlook; __the __only __reason __Uryuu__ found __out __at __all__ is __because __Ryuuken__ was __so __careless __as __to __leave__ the __paperwork __on __the __kitchen __table_). If anything, Ryuuken looks like a man who has been living at the bare minimum of everything for longer than anyone cares to recall. Subsisting, but not enjoying anything of life.

"_You do not fight with all of your strength unless you fight to protect something. You do not live with true joy unless you have something that you value."_

He does not look like a man who has anything to protect, or anything that he values. He looks like a man who has nothing at all.

Uryuu walks into the room, intent on turning out the light and going back to bed; if he doesn't he'll hear Ryuuken muttering about electric bills in the morning from having had the desk lamp burning all night long.

Up close, Uryuu can see that the marks on Ryuuken's face from where his glasses have been pressing into his skin are darker than what he thought from the threshold. Uryuu reaches out a hand, pulls it back to his chest in hesitation for just a moment. Once the hesitation has passed, Uryuu stretches out his hand and pulls Ryuuken's glasses off his face. Ryuuken, ever the heavy sleeper, doesn't even stir.

That accomplished, Uryuu turns out the light and goes back to bed.


	102. 102: Acceptance

**Title**: Acceptance**  
>AN**: As of today, I've been working on _Entropy _for six months.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>The usual stiffening comes over him when he picks up on the roars. Having been walking down the sidewalk on the way home from school, Uryuu stops, eyes glazed and heading off into the distance to his left, towards the dense forest.<p>

Roars, the screams that follow, the earth quaking for huge feet pelting on it, and that all-too-familiar presence. Uryuu's grip on the strap of his bag tightens, and he draws his tongue over dry, cracked lips, breath growing nearly still.

_Do I stay or do I go?_

A familiar wave of guilt washes over him, and Uryuu isn't able to move away and stop listening as he has been in the past.

If Uryuu is honest with himself, he knows why he has been trying to live in a little bubble where spirits and Hollows and Shinigami don't exist. The admittance is a shameful one to him now, especially with the realizations that have come down on him recently. He knows why he turns a blind eye to Hollow attacks. He knows why he tries to blind his eyes to the ceremonies of blood and feasting.

In some dark day when his mind wasn't working quite correctly, Uryuu had been under the impression that if he managed to live completely in the living world and have nothing to do with the land of the dead, maybe things between him and his father would get better. He had thought that maybe, in time, Ryuuken would come to accept him, accept his presence in the house that he occupied as more than that of an unwelcome interloper. That was all Uryuu had wanted, a life where he wasn't seen as an interloper in his own house, where his father would show him something resembling acceptance.

To that end, he strived towards perfection as far as academics go and towards blindness against the world of the supernatural. Uryuu did as best he could to forget that he was a Quincy and he had the power, however minimal, to make some sort of difference, and tried to submerge himself in schoolbooks and, failing that, needle and thread. It never worked entirely but his hands are starting to forget what it's like to have the gleaming spirit bow.

Of course, the end result of that is that Uryuu, even today, can't quite stand to look himself in the eye when he looks into a mirror. He doesn't like the way his reflection looks, loathes being that person who has caved under pressure, but doesn't do anything to change it. He keeps on the way he has since Soken died, grimaces in ugly fashion when forced to look at himself, and denies the truth about himself at all costs.

Acceptance. That was all he'd wanted. Uryuu had not asked for love, nor affection, nor respect, though if he could have had these things from Ryuuken, nothing would have made Uryuu happier. He had once had the nerve to ask himself whether his father loved him, and decided he was better off not knowing. At best, all Uryuu could say of his father in certainty on that matter was that Ryuuken preferred him alive as opposed to dead; whether he _loved_ him was another matter entirely. Not knowing if love was something he could even ask for, Uryuu settled on focusing his attentions towards acceptance instead.

If he had had any sign that Ryuuken accepted him, Uryuu knows that he'd be able to live his life without ever going after a single Hollow. He knows that if Ryuuken ever gave any sign that he was satisfied with Uryuu's attempts to please him, he would have held that as a balm against his screaming conscience. Maybe he's a weak person for that or maybe his logic is flawed and his father's acceptance wouldn't have done anything for the guilt over his own inaction, but it doesn't matter either way.

A rule of life Uryuu has learned and knows well is that in life very rarely do you get what you want. Sometimes you might, but often you receive what you wanted only in half-measure or at a price too high to make the achievement anything resembling enjoyable. The rule of thumb is that life shortchanges you and when you try to make bargains you get the short end of the stick. Trying to make your own way without help from anyone doesn't work any better, but at least you're less likely to get burned by the agony of loss. You almost never get what you want; this is what Uryuu has learned.

Either Ryuuken is unsatisfied with Uryuu's attempts to make himself into what he thinks he wants, or he hasn't noticed them at all. Ryuuken remains much the same as ever, distant, demanding, impossible to please, and so, _so_ chilly. The man who spurns physical closeness and zeroes in like the most merciless of predators on any hint of weakness. He sees nothing in Uryuu of Uryuu himself, sees only what his eyes want to see, feeding into his own impatience and irritation with him. Uryuu doesn't know if Ryuuken has ever really _seen_ him at all.

Uryuu knows what he is to his father: an afterimage of things long gone, a relic of a past he wants more than anything to just disappear. Unless his outlook and his nature change drastically, Ryuuken will never want to accept a thing like that.

Eventually, the screams out in the forest stop, and Uryuu reflects bitterly that the reason he lets living and dead alike face oblivion in savage jaws is because he strives fruitlessly for acceptance from an unappeasable man. Uryuu turns on his heel and continues on towards home, teeth gritted, fingernails digging into his palms until they leave the darkest marks, so dark that he has to wonder how they avoided breaking the skin.

_Why do I even bother to try to please him at all? Nothing works._

These days, it gets harder to walk away each time.


	103. 103: Crossroads

**Title**: Crossroads**  
>AN**: I didn't realize until I typed it how lamely punny this title is, but I don't care. It fits anyway.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p><em>What <em>_time __is __it? _Uryuu wonders to himself, lacing up his tennis shoes. The alarm clock shows 10:27 and he nods. A quick peek outside of his bedroom has already shown Ryuuken to be in bed; the fact that the lights are off in his room means he's probably asleep. If Uryuu is careful about this and he doesn't slam doors or bump into furniture in the dark, he should be able to go and be back without Ryuuken ever noticing he was gone.

The way Ryuuken would react if he knew what Uryuu is planning to do isn't something he wants to think about.

If he stretches out his awareness Uryuu can pick up on the familiar strains of a monstrous reiatsu, just a couple of blocks away. A Hollow, stalking it's next meal or wandering aimlessly, but it won't be doing either for much longer, not if Uryuu has anything to say about it. _Let__'__s __hope __I __still __remember__ how __to __do __this __properly, _he thinks to himself grimly. _If I __get __up __to __where __that __Hollow __is __and __it __turns __out __I__'__m __so __rusty __I __can__'__t __even __form __a __spirit __bow, __I__'__m __in __big __trouble._

A sort of giddy anticipation has befallen Uryuu; he feels like there are butterflies fluttering agitatedly in his stomach. Fully dressed, almost ready to go try to kill a Hollow for the first time wearing his spare gym clothes and a sweatshirt to ward off the cold of the chilly autumn night, he pauses, perched on the edge of the bed. It's so hard to breathe.

This is a crossroad, where the road diverges before him into two paths that will never meet again. Uryuu has been holding off on choosing a path for a long time, putting off the inevitable choice for nothing short of an eternity. He can't wait anymore. It seems that neither the world nor himself will tolerate this Limbo any longer.

Still, there is a last moment of hesitation left.

Never an expert in the art of self-deception, Uryuu knows why he's doing this now, and only now. He had doubted himself, thought himself too weak, too cowardly, to take up the mantle of a hunter of Hollows and carry on the family tradition. Well, Uryuu still doubts himself, even now. He doubts his ability to fight a Hollow and survive, let alone win (_If __Sensei __could __end__ up __dead __so __can __I_). Uryuu stares down at his pale, long-fingered hands, the calluses bought from training with his grandfather in another distant life all but faded, and finds himself inadequate, unequal to those who went before. But he is the only one left to carry on his family, his race, their traditions and their way of life. He's the only one who cares, the only one who can.

Uryuu tried, for over three years, to deny this part of himself. He'd wanted the acceptance of his sole living relative, wanted to please his father and he'd thought that if he tired to ground himself in the living world, his father would be satisfied. He thought that if he put that part of himself that had learned how to fire a bow and arrow with Grandfather away into a little box and shoved it into the dark, Ryuuken would be content. It didn't work. Ryuuken took neither appreciation nor notice of Uryuu's struggles to deny his conscience, and even if he had, Uryuu isn't sure he wouldn't have come to this point.

_(You can't deny a part of yourself without inevitably denying the rest as well. This Uryuu discovered to his cost, and he can't live at all until he embraces all parts. Ryuuken, Uryuu supposes, must have denied that part of himself in his past, and has forgotten how to live at all. He looks at his father, and doesn't want to end up like that. He doesn't want to be living a half-life or a not-life._

I'll never live like that again, _he__ vows._ I don't see how anyone could.)

The mirror shows him a face he is ashamed to wear. Waxen, narrow, slightly hollow-cheeked, with clear, deep blue eyes that stare candidly back at him, with a sharp nose and thin mouth, a touch gaunt from being so regularly sick. A face that has vacillated for so long, a face of weakness, a face that has been disloyal to memory. Uryuu wants to be able to look at himself in the mirror again, wants to be able to see his reflection and not be overwhelmed by the ugly urge to banish the image from sight.

He wants to honor his grandfather's memory. That's what Uryuu wants, to be loyal to the one person in his life he could count on to be there when he needed him. To make Soken's life and his gruesome death worth something, to at least honor his grandfather's name. It won't bring him back—nothing will—but at least Uryuu can make use of what he taught him when he was still alive. He owes his grandfather that much.

Tense hands wring together, fingers tingling with adrenaline. _Will__ I__ win? _Uryuu wonders to himself treacherously. _Will__ I __die __like __he __did? _These are doubts Uryuu will only ever admit to himself. _Don__'__t__ you __think __you__'__re __too __young __to __be __doing __this?__ Sensei __barely __scratched __the __surface __with __your __training;__ don__'__t __you __think __you__'__re __getting __in __over __your __head? _However niggling the doubts are, they stay in the realm of thoughts and things unspoken. Even at this age, Uryuu has too much pride to confide his bouts to anyone.

_I__ have __to __do __this. __I __have __to. _Hollows roam the streets and the lonely, windswept places, the forests and the parks. Living and dead fall to them day and night, when those who should guard souls against them turn their eyes to blindness. The Shinigami don't do their job right. Uryuu doesn't know why they fall slack, but the Shinigami are never there when someone needs them. They're never there. They never are.

_I could end up with the whole world against me, but right now I don't care. He might hate me for this, but I don't care. I have to._

He's been putting this off for too long. He can't anymore. Uryuu stands up, his legs stiff and even sore with anticipation, eyes flickering towards the mattress.

Down underneath the mattress, something is kept. It's kept there so that Ryuuken will never find it—it's not like the man routinely searches Uryuu's room for contraband but there's no harm in being careful. Now, heart throbbing in his throat, Uryuu lifts up the mattress to take out a white handkerchief with navy blue embroidery, with something small wrapped up inside.

Delicate silver chain and a thin Celtic cross glint in the light from the lamp on the nightstand, pure and smooth. _I__ remember __when __he__ gave __me __this. _Uryuu licks his lips, eyes burning, before he wraps the chain around his wrist the way he saw his grandfather wear it. His fingers curl around the cross and feels the sparks of spirit power prickling against his palm like a new life waiting to be born. He heads out of the house in silence, careful not to make a sound.

The crossroad has been passed.


	104. 104: Hunter

**Title**: Hunter**  
>AN**: If there is one thing I really _don__'__t_ enjoy writing, it's fight scenes. I always feel like I'm writing the same thing over and over again. Therefore, fight scenes will be rare in any of my works; sorry if you wanted something different.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>It wasn't over nearly as quickly as Uryuu would have liked, but it is over, and he sits on a park bench, breath ragged and body screaming all over.<p>

_It__'__s __a __good __thing __I __do __my __laundry __on __days __when__ Father __isn__'__t __home, _Uryuu thinks ruefully, looking over his bloodied, slightly torn clothes with more than a hint of embarrassment, _and __it__'__s __a __really __good __thing __I __know __enough __about __sewing __now__ to __mend __my __own __clothes. __I__'__d __be __in __a__ lot __of __trouble __otherwise. __Now __all __I__'__ve __got __to __do__ is __avoid __meeting__ anyone __on__ the __way __home._ He runs one hand over the other, feeling scratches and little gouges in the skin, the sort of thing so shallow and trifling that they'll likely be gone by morning.

Others won't be.

_The roars of pain are either from the wounded Hollow or from himself; head spinning, Uryuu isn't sure. He's on his knees in the road, prime road kill material for any car that happens to be making a late night trip. The Hollow writhes in the grass nearby, gaping wound in its side, contracting and expanding with each breath like a grotesque mouth. The lips of the wound pucker._

Come on, you have to get up. _Uryuu __gasps __as __he __puts __his __weight __on __his __left __leg; __the __jolt __of __pain __jogs __him __into __full __consciousness. _If that Hollow gets up before you do, you're dead.

_Struggling to ignore that which tells him he's in pain, Uryuu clambers to his feet and readies himself to jump back into the fray._

Uryuu has learned. His fingers wrap around the little cross in his hand and he grimaces ruefully, because he's learned. _Try__ to __keep __your __distance __next __time. __You __might __miss, __but __at __least __you__'__ll __miss __without __getting __knocked __around __like __a __rag __doll __in __the __process. _He hadn't missed, though, not even once. Arrows hit target every time, and even if he's bleeding, even if his breathing is labored, even if blood still pounds in his ears, Uryuu cracks a smile.

His thoughts keep bouncing back and forth between triumph and visceral fear. Adrenaline and the relief of tension, all mashed together, nearly impossible to separate.

_I__ could __have __ended __up __like __Sensei. _The thought does occur to Uryuu and he bites his lip, before blowing on his fingers in the attempt to warm them. The November cold is piercing, especially to such a thin body. Home and bed have never looked more appealing than they do now, but he hasn't yet regained the energy necessary to drag himself back home. _I __could __have __been __killed._

Thoughts of possible death bring Uryuu to wonder how his father would have reacted. To himself, frowning, Uryuu wonders how Ryuuken would take it if he were to disappear in the night and never come home. _How __would __he __react? _It occurs to Uryuu that he's never seen his father crying. True, it's generally held that a man should not show their insecurities to the world, but just about anyone will break down in tears if the strain on them is great enough. Uryuu doesn't think he's ever seen him even close to tears; anything like a strong display of emotion usually showcases anger.

_Would __he __mourn __at __all?__ Would __he __respond__ the __way __he __did __with __everyone __else __and__ just __act __as __though __I __was __never __there?_ These thoughts are enough to give him something resembling guilt, knotting his stomach, but Uryuu throws it off. His father made his choices a long time ago, and now, so has Uryuu.

_Let __me __give __my __due __to __the __dead. _Uryuu remembers pulling back on the bowstring and letting the last arrow fly, ending the cat and mouse game that had gone on for more than an hour. His training, even left off as it had been, had not deserted him after all; he still remembers the proper stances, how to position his feet and keep his back and shoulders. He still remembers everything. _I__'__m__ the __only__ one __left __to __do__ this. __I __have __to __do __it __right._

"_No, no, I wouldn't let you run off and hunt Hollows by yourself," Soken chides him gently, smiling at the expression of eagerness all over Uryuu's small face and patting his shoulder when it fades. "You're far too young for that, even with a partner. I wouldn't let you come with me until you were at least fifteen. As for by yourself, well… I'd say about eighteen, then. You should be experienced enough by then."_

Uryuu holds his palms out, scratched and skinned and bloodied. _I __don__'__t __feel __like __a__ child, __though. __I __never __have, __not __really. __No __one __ever __gave__ me __the __chance __too. __I__'__m __not __a __child, __and __I__'__m __not __too __young._

_If I'm not going to do it, who will?_

Sighing, Uryuu picks himself up off of the bench, and he turns back down the road, fingers still wrapped firmly around the little silver cross. Triumph is lost in the place of fatigue and the feeling that he's about to drop where he stands.

He needs to get on to home.


	105. 105: Control

**Title**: Control**  
>AN**: Nothing to say here.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p><em>God <em>_save __me __from__ the __idiocy __of __this __singularly __foolish__ child. _A thought like that is what crosses Ryuuken's mind when he hears the front door open and shut around ten-thirty at night. Nevertheless, he doesn't go running after Uryuu. _May __he __be __protected __from __his __own __foolishness, _he thinks when he hears it open and shut again closer to one fifteen in the morning. Ryuuken can think of few reasons as to why Uryuu would be sneaking out in the middle of the night, and unless he's suddenly joined a street gang, which Ryuuken seriously doubts, it has to be that Uryuu has decided to take up Hollow slaying like his mother and his grandfather before him.

Lying awake in bed, sleep escaping him and an unattractive prospect anyways, Ryuuken stares up at the ceiling, his right arm draped across his forehead wearily. _So __it __couldn__'__t __be __avoided __after __all? _A soft whispering sound comes from Uryuu's bedroom, the sound of stiff, white sheets being pulled back from the bed as he drags himself back into bed.

_He's just a child. He could have been killed. That he wasn't is nothing short of a miracle._

Children should not take up the lot of adults; children should not perpetuate a cycle of suicidal recklessness. Ryuuken sighs heavily and shuts his eyes, knowing exactly what he will say in the morning, and yet not at all sure.

-0-0-0-

At six-thirty the world is still showing little sign of being anything but a night-covered place, a thin coating of new frost sparkling coldly beneath the sinking moon. Ryuuken is still home far later than what is normal for him, but for once it's completely on purpose, and he's not worried about being late for work. This would be the first time in over four years; considering that, the fact that he hasn't got anything major lined up for today and the fact that he now runs the place, he thinks he can be forgiven.

He drinks his cup of coffee in silence, leaning against the kitchen counter and brooding.

_That idiot. Doesn't he know how dangerous it is even for a fully-grown, fully-trained Quincy to go chasing after Hollows? He'll still be growing into his abilities when he's in his twenties and the level of training he's received barely qualifies him as a novice. What on Earth possessed him to do this?_

The smooth, opaque black surface of the liquid trembles as Ryuuken shifts his weight, fingers tightening around the ceramic cup and face rearranging itself into the scowl of a dark glare. _Trust __Uryuu__ to __indulge __in __this __level__ of __foolishness. _One would think that Uryuu, after being subjected to the ordeal of witnessing his grandfather's bloody end, would be more averse to approaching a Hollow with bow in hand. _He__ of __all __people __should __understand __how__ dangerous __it __is._

Ryuuken had watched Uryuu's behavior and dared to hope—_he__ curses __his __own __foolishness __now; __Ryuuken __ought __to __have __known __better __than __to __do __something__ so __foolhardy __as __hope_—that maybe Uryuu had abandoned the Quincy lifestyle and his grandfather's teachings. Yes, he still acknowledged the spirit world, yes, he still occasionally turned to speak to spirits, but these were small sins, far better than the alternative of trying to kill Hollows, and Ryuuken was, albeit grudgingly, willing to excuse it. This was part of the reason he so readily accepted it when Uryuu displayed an interest in sewing; _anything_ was better than trying to kill Hollows.

He had hoped, so wildly hoped, that the destructive cycle would end with Soken and that finally the Quincy would be allowed to die. That finally, a race of hunters that the Shinigami had massacred two hundred hears ago and no longer held any legitimate place in the world would be allowed to pass out of memory, and from there into oblivion. _We__ are __a__ dying __race__—__no,__ a __dead __race. __To __try __to __deny __that __is __the __height __of __folly. __All __the __foolish__ pride __in __the __world __can __not __disguise __the __fact __that __the __Quincy __race __has __dwindled __down __to __a __single __family __line. __That __can__not __be __labeled __anything __but __extinction. __Everything __has __its __time. __Everything __dies.__ Why __can__'__t __we?_

Hope. Ryuuken berates himself and curses his own name again and again for ever subscribing to such an untenable investment as hope. He had once hoped for an untroubled life. _Trouble __comes __his __way, __again __and __again, __no __matter __how __he __tries __to __hold __back __the __tide. _He had once hoped to be able to live to old age with someone he could love. _She __died __in the __snow, __the __traces __of __her __last __smile __gone __like __steam__ chased __from __a __cup __of __hot __water. _He had once hoped his child would show some semblance of common sense and show the level of self-preservation required to live to see thirty. _This__ child __will __likely __not __live __to __see __eighteen; __he __takes __on __the __responsibility __of __an __adult __without __holding __any __of __the __knowledge __of __one._

_Never __again, _he muses bitterly, _never __again __will __I __let __hope __get __in __the __way __of __my __own __common __sense._

He had forgotten that at the core of Uryuu's being there is a complete lack of common sense.

Uryuu sits at the kitchen table, eyes downcast, trying to keep things secret and close to his chest. He does not meet his father's gaze, seems to be trying to deny his existence there altogether. Ryuuken looks him over, eyes narrowing, to drink in the sight of the new being just born hours before.

Uryuu is shockingly pale, twitchy, face strained to the point of being like bleached silk stretched tight across bone. Long, spindly fingers clench the spoon as he doles up cereal and eats slowly, plainly enjoying none of it. _Going__ through __the __motions __of __eating __without __enjoying __it; __the __usual __feeling __after __staying __up __all __night __running __after __Hollows. _Ashen skin is off-set by bluish-violet shadows under his eyes, the telltale symptom of fatigue born of sleepless nights.

Spoon clinking against the edge of the bowl, Uryuu reaches for his glass of water. He's wearing his jacket today, and when he reaches for the glass, the sleeve falls away from his arm and Ryuuken can see why. A long, thin cut winds its way, a thin, crimson snake, up his arm.

_Honestly…_

"You're lucky it wasn't worse," Ryuuken remarks, able to keep his voice perfectly conversational despite everything, the sharp edge existing without making his voice crack.

With that, blue eyes snap up from the kitchen to Ryuuken's face, and he finds Uryuu's eyes, at least, to be unchanged. The rest of him is the body of a stranger, of a child who apes the role of an adult, those eyes are still Uryuu's, the same defiant, uncertain, stunningly familiar eyes, and Ryuuken realizes that he hasn't really changed at all.

Ryuuken scoffs at the flabbergasted look on Uryuu's face; he can find no tolerance for naïveté today. "The lights being off doesn't mean I'm asleep. I always know where you are," he adds darkly, resisting the urge to tap his head for emphasis. The look of paranoia that flits over Uryuu's pale face is enough for now.

The way thin fingers knot together just reinforces the realization that even if he takes his life into his hands, Uryuu is still the socially awkward twelve-year-old boy of yesterday. And that's just it. _He__'__s_ twelve _years __old, _his father can't help but think with a touch of exasperated despair. _No __matter__ how __much __you __want__ to __think __you __can __do __it, __you__'__re __twelve __years __old. __You__'__re __just __a__ child._

Finally, Uryuu manages to speak, the words coming out so impulsively. "You can't stop me."

"So you want to die the way your grandfather did?" Ryuuken's voice is crashing into something like the emotions he had told himself he would keep out of his tongue. "Is that what you want?" he snaps.

If Ryuuken didn't know better, he'd say that the momentary flash in Uryuu's eyes was something highly akin to hatred. Bringing Soken up in conversation tends to have that effect on him. "Don't start," he mutters, fingers digging into his palms.

"Do you want to die the way your grandfather did?" Despite himself, Ryuuken finds himself on the same track. Uryuu doesn't respond and Ryuuken's control vanishes in a puff of smoke. "The way your mother did?" he demands raggedly.

The way Ryuuken expects Uryuu to react to his particular jibe is with the normal anger and defiance, the lame retort, and the retreat. What he gets instead is something very different.

Uryuu responds as though slapped in the face. Shoulders jerk back, face pales even further, dark blue eyes—now entirely too familiar—go as round as coins, and the corners of his lips tremble just a little bit. For a moment, Uryuu says nothing, just stares, open-mouthed, at him, the beginnings of grief and horror creeping like night shadows up his face. "…What?" he chokes out finally, and Ryuuken remembers a little facet of his parents' history that Uryuu himself never learned.

_I remember now. He never did ask. All those years, all those questions, and I don't think that was ever one of them._

_He never did ask how his mother died._

While Ryuuken is regaining his composure and processing the impact of the words he let out too recklessly, Uryuu takes the opportunity provided by his father's distraction to scrape out his cereal into the trash can, grab his books and head out the front door without another word.

_Hell._

The coffee holds no appeal and, sighing, Ryuuken tips it out down the sink. _Of __all __the __ways__… __Of __all __the__ ways, __that__'__s __not __the __one __that __should __have __been._

Even a possibly suicidal one, Uryuu really was still a child after all. And for once, Ryuuken recognizes that he should have executed some self-control.

_He had to find out eventually. At least he knows._


	106. 106: Treatment

**Title**: Treatment**  
>AN**: I would have had this up earlier in the day, but I got distracted watching _The __Many __Adventures __of __Winnie __the __Pooh _on YouTube. Sebastian Cabot was God's gift to the world of voice acting (May he rest in peace). TTFN.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>During the day, Ryuuken manages to distract himself from thoughts of his son with the daily routines at the hospital. See to patients, do paperwork, go outside for a smoke during breaks. He supposes that that is what work has always been to him, not just the action of mending ills but to dig a hole so deep he can't see the reality of his own life from there.<p>

The work day has to end eventually, though, and on the way home Ryuuken picks up a few things on the way home at the local supermarket.

A thick roll of gauze bandages, cotton balls, swabs, and _lots_ of antiseptic are placed carefully into a shopping basket. Antibiotics can be prescribed if Uryuu ever shows sign of an infection, but if he doesn't, then there's no point. The cashier eyes the items Ryuuken has put before her with naked curiosity, but upon making eye contact with him and seeing the sort of face he wears she seems to think better of asking why he's buying all of it, shrinking back and ringing the assorted items up in silence. Ryuuken nods curtly upon being given the receipt, leaving as quickly as he came and feeling grateful for the culture of polite silence that permeates the working world. The curiosity of others would do him no good today.

_And, of course, I'm sure he has no idea of how to dress his own wounds. Oh yes, the boy can put band-aids on cuts but the injuries gained from tussling with Hollows aren't the sort of thing that can be patched up with band-aids and Neosporin._

If Ryuuken recalls, the first few times he went, albeit quite unenthusiastically, after Hollows before disillusion sunk in and he wondered what the point was, he ended up quite battered himself. In the days before any action he took against Hollows was anything but self-defense—_No,__ even __then __as __well_—he would find himself with bruises, claw and teeth marks, long lacerations, and even broken bones, if things did not go well. Ryuuken himself did not kill his first Hollow until he was some years older than Uryuu is now, and under his father's supervision at that.

_For his faults, at least the old man would never have let me come to serious harm with him there to do something about it. Uryuu didn't even have that._

He's about seven forty-five getting home, greeted by the ruddy dregs of the sunken sun and a piercing cold that reaches his bones even through his thick coat. Plastic bag crinkling with each step, Ryuuken pulls out his key and unlocks the front door.

That the light in the kitchen is on and there are fresh dishes on the dish rack, still dripping water onto the absorbent mat beneath, tells Ryuuken that Uryuu either is currently or was home. He lays the bag down on the coffee table and his coat across the chair, turning on the light in the living room before going to Uryuu's room to check to see if he's there.

The door has been left slightly ajar, a sliver of golden light escaping through the crack, and indeed, Uryuu is inside. He's sitting on his bed, attention fully held by the book grasped in his hands, something gotten from his school's library, judging from the clear plastic dust jacket. A fictional work, no doubt; while Uryuu seems to enjoy almost any topic he comes across, fantasy and tales of faraway places are what he most gravitates to. His own escape from the grimmer reality, Ryuuken supposes. The smell still lingers as well, the musty odor the Hollow left behind. _How __can __he __not __have __noticed__ that?_

For a moment, Ryuuken forgets what he came here to do, but after that moment is gone and banished he recovers memory and resists the urge to just stare in silence at his, as he can see now, very battered child. "Uryuu." The one he calls jumps, full of nerves, at the breaking of the silence, and Uryuu's eyes snap upwards.

Uryuu tries and fails to hide the nervous apprehension that floods his eyes when he sees his father standing in the doorway to his bedroom. His back stiffens, but at the same time his eyes flicker down to the floor and he sinks into the pillow at his back. Ryuuken recognizes this particular stance all too well. It's the tune of Uryuu trying to show some defiance until better instinct overrides stubborn pride and he, no matter how humiliated he is by it, finds himself giving off body language that screams of submission. His burning eyes say one thing; that his shoulders sink say something completely different.

Ryuuken has no time for that tonight, and has no desire to dwell on _why_ Uryuu is displaying that sort of body language, though he's sure he'll end up thinking about it eventually. "Come with me." His tone brooks no argument, and Uryuu gets out of bed and follows him without a word of argument.

Upon returning to the living room, Ryuuken takes his purchases out of the bag, fills a bowl with hot water, gets a clean dish cloth and following that turns his attention back to Uryuu with a brisk, businesslike nod, gesturing towards the couch. "Alright. Take off your shirt and sit down."

To say that Uryuu looks taken aback doesn't go far enough to describe his expression now. "What?" he asks blankly, just a touch mutinously.

All resistance dies with Ryuuken's withering gaze and, a deep crimson flush spreading up his neck, Uryuu starts to unbutton his shirt, biting his lip as he does so. Uryuu's always had some level of trouble with buttons that Ryuuken can't understand; his hands are perfectly deft, so buttons ought not to be any trouble for him, but they are anyway.

Shivering slightly, Uryuu sits down on the couch, and Ryuuken can finally get a good look at the damage his recent skirmish has wrought on him. His thin, bony, strangely delicate body is blotched and split open with long scratches bruising around the edges, colored pale, sickly yellow, blue, purple, black. _About__ as __bad __as __I__ expected. __No __wonder __he __looks __so __sore._

Ryuuken jabs at Uryuu's ribs, to which Uryuu flinches away and glares at him. The elder of the two sighs exasperatedly and more than matches his glare. He knows why Uryuu flinched, knows it has nothing to do with physical pain, but won't address it. _Must __not __think __about __that. __Everything __falls __apart __in __the __absence __of __control. _"Alright then… Do you think you have any broken bones?" Ryuuken asks tightly.

Uryuu looks away, biting his lip as he comes to the realization—_Finally_—of exactly what his father's trying to do. "I—"

"Look at me when you talk to me."

"I don't think so," Uryuu finishes, all his anger back in place with smoldering eyes.

_Well__ there__'__s __that __at __least. _Ryuuken gets down to the business of wiping down the long, thin scratches all over Uryuu's torso and his arms with the water—_must __be __properly __cleaned __before __anything __else __can __be __done. __It __will __at __least __get __rid __of __the __smell __the __Hollow__ left __behind._

In a moment of clarity, Ryuuken realizes that what Uryuu said that morning was true. He can't stop him. Ryuuken can't watch Uryuu every hour of every day. He can not dog his steps, can not stop him from hunting Hollows, no matter how much he wishes he could. Uryuu, for all his foolishness, can be clever when he wants to be; he knows how to give him the slip.

_Others __might __call __this __giving __up, __but __realistically __speaking __it__'__s __all __I__ can __do. _Having no desire to see Uryuu contract sepsis, any sort of infection or see him die from preventable wounds, Ryuuken will do this at least. Do this, make it as unpleasant for Uryuu as possible and attempt to make him aware of the extent of his idiocy in the process. It won't do anything at first, he's sure, and probably won't do anything more in the long-run, but it is an effort of some sort. The child who has decided to risk his life likely won't listen to him.

And as he starts to swab antiseptic over the cuts, Ryuuken can no longer keep the memory of what he said this morning off his mind either.

He doesn't know what to say to Uryuu about it, so he will say nothing at all, and wonder if Uryuu will let it go. _Almost __certainly __not. __And __would __I, __if __something __of __the __like __was __said __to __me? __Typical __of __him, __and __just __as __typical __of __me._

…_It doesn't matter._

After a minute of tense silence, Uryuu half turns his head towards his father, mouth slightly open. It's clear he's trying to summon the courage to say something, but can't quite manage it, and Ryuuken thinks he knows exactly what.

"If you're wondering how I knew—" Ryuuken manages to remain remarkably conversational and somehow as frigid as ice at the same time, just as with the morning's confrontation "—I believe I already gave you an explanation." Uryuu's mouth contorts in that same paranoid expression as earlier. "But at the same time…" Ryuuken pauses to dig what looks like a piece of gravel out of the scratch on Uryuu's arm, to which the response is a sharp intake of breath "…you don't seem to have showered since then. You've still got that smell on you," he mutters.

Then, Uryuu says exactly what Ryuuken expected least. He twists around to look Ryuuken in the eye, incredulous and, at the same time, a touch wary. "What… What smell?" he asks uncomprehendingly.

Unrolling the bandages next, Ryuuken doesn't respond.


	107. 107: Speculation

**Title**: Speculation**  
>AN**: Nothing much to say here.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>The bandages around his arms and chest itch horribly, but Uryuu resists the urge to scratch; his fingernails are of uneven lengths and some of them quite jagged, and Uryuu doesn't need to tear his skin any more than it already has been. He's bled enough, been bruised enough. The painkillers he took aren't quite enough to completely block out the pain, and there is a dull, blunt ache omnipresent when he rolls over in bed. Uryuu usually lies on his back in bed, but since all that's doing is putting weight on some of the more sore scratches, so he lies on his side instead.<p>

It's been three days since Uryuu held bow and arrow for the first time since hew as eight years old, three days since he killed a Hollow for the first time and got all of these cuts and bruises in the process. Not having picked up on any more Hollows in the vicinity since then, Uryuu can count his first kill as his only kill, but has no doubt that it will not be the last.

Ryuuken does not seem to be any less angry than he was the first day, though he still insists on inspecting the progress of Uryuu's healing wounds (_"__If__ kept __clean, __the __bandages __should __be __changed __once __a __day; __if __dirtied, __they __should __be __changed __as __soon __as __possible,__" __Ryuuken__ mutters, both __to __himself and for Uryuu's benefit, __all __the __while __ignoring __Uryuu__'__s __wincing __as __the __bandages __are __pulled __ever __tighter __across __his __chest_). His anger is expressed through cold silences and bandages pulled so tight they hurt, and Uryuu does not speak for fear of provoking words. Ryuuken has already proved that, more than anything, words hurt far more than anything else ever could. _His__ cruelest __weapon __is __his __tongue._

Uryuu's eyes narrow as he stares at the cold silver bars of light seeping through the gaps in the blinds. _Why__ doe__s he __always __go __for __the __cruelest __words __first? _A lightning bolt of pain shoots up his spine as he shifts his weight, but Uryuu ignores it on the personally held philosophy that life is pain and pain is the only proof of life. Besides, he's preoccupied with another sort of pain that pain of the flesh barely even registers on the corners of his mind.

_So that's how she died, is it?_

Once, when he was very young, Uryuu supposes he might have asked Ryuuken where his mother had gone. He supposes he might have asked, with eyes averted, why all the other children he saw had a mother but he didn't. If he ever did ask that, then it was in the time later swallowed up by lack of memory, because Uryuu has no recollection of any such experience. He can, however, guess that if it ever came up in conversation, Ryuuken gave him no answer. More likely than not, he had been stonewalled, though whether or not Ryuuken had done it gently was more difficult to say.

What the past may have held no longer matters. Uryuu knows now, and his questions redouble without any possible outlet.

_What__ does __that __even __mean? _Dead in a Hollow's maw can mean one of two things: one, that she was unfortunate enough to find herself a Hollow's prey and there was no help to be had, or two, that she died fighting a Hollow.

If it was the latter, then what did that make Uryuu's mother? Quincy, Shinigami, or something else entirely? Uryuu has a hard time believing that his father married a Quincy, given his not terribly subtle hatred of his people as a whole. The thought that his mother may have been a Shinigami evokes decidedly mixed feelings in Uryuu, and he wonders if he would have been able to put aside his anger against them if he ever knew her. Though the only humans with spirit powers Uryuu knows of are the Quincy, that doesn't mean a whole lot—he never did ask his grandfather if there were any others, and he knows his father wouldn't say anything if he asked.

The gaps in his knowledge are piling up even more now (ironic, considering that Uryuu's recognition of that follows the imparting of knowledge), and Uryuu thinks that the woman who stares out at the world through a summery photograph must have had secrets in her smiles.

(_He __looks __at __the __photo __now, __holding __the __frame __in __his __hands__—_It doesn't feel so heavy anymore as it did when he was younger—_and __when __Uryuu __meets midnight __blue __eyes __just __the __same __shade __as __his, __he __can __see __a __shadow__ there __that __he __never __noticed __before. __Whether __it__'__s __the __truth __or __just __his __imagination, __that __smile __doesn__'__t __look __quite __so __open__ anymore._

_When __he __was __a __child, __Uryuu __never __supposed __that __the __adults __in __his __life __were __capable __of __keeping __secrets, __but __nowadays __when __he __looks __at __his __mother__'__s __picture, __all __there __he __can__ see __is __secrets. _I wonder what things there were in her life that she couldn't share with anyone. I wonder what it was like for her to have to keep those secrets.)

Of course, the more likely alternative, that she had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time and hadn't been able to get away, wipes out all of this speculation, but Uryuu more likes to believe that his mother had at least died on her feet instead of just having been a hapless victim of circumstance.

Once his mind turns away from curiosity and the burning void his sheer lack of knowledge leaves in him—_I__ know __next __to __nothing __about __her; __I __mean, __did __Mother __have __any __surviving __family __I __could __ask;_ Uryuu would love answers, but in the absence of even a name he has no idea where to start—Uryuu pulls the covers more closely about him and bites down hard on his lip.

_Of all the ways I thought I'd find out how she died, that wasn't what I'd expected. That wasn't what I'd wanted._

Uryuu tells himself that he doesn't care if his father disapproves of him, that he doesn't care what sort of barbs Ryuuken fires during their arguments in the attempt to shock him into submission. He's lying to himself, of course, and he can pick up on that nearly as soon as the thought crosses his mind.

_Too __late __to __stop __now._ It won't make him stop, but Uryuu has come to dread getting up in the morning. The daylight can't hide him from anything, let alone his father's chilly anger.


	108. 108: Tie

**Title**: Tie**  
>AN**: This takes place a while after the previous three chapters, and yeah, I know it's shorter. Just consider it a chapter with a lighter mood to make the dark chapters seem darker.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>Heading off to work one morning, Ryuuken is stopped short by a slant of light coming through the open bathroom door, and the sound of exasperated mumbling from inside.<p>

_Now what on Earth is this about? _

Given that he's been sneaking out a lot lately during the odd hours of the night, Ryuuken for a moment thinks that Uryuu has gotten hurt during a bout with a Hollow again, and he simply didn't wake up this time. It's not like Uryuu ever tells him when he's gotten hurt—he leaves it for him to notice when Uryuu has his sleeves rolled up and the bruises are visible. Ryuuken nearly announces himself with a snappish "_How __bad __is __it _this _time?__" _until he stops in the doorway and sees what Uryuu is doing.

Today will be Uryuu's first day of junior high school, and coincidentally his first day of wearing a school uniform. More specifically, it will be his first day of having to wear a proper tie, and he doesn't seem to be having an easy time of properly knotting his tie.

Of course, this isn't the first time Uryuu has worn a tie. He's worn them to funerals before, tugging at his collar the whole time. But those were clip-on ties, easy to get on and off, not proper neckties like what he's struggling with now. Uryuu holds the ends of the cloth looped around his neck in his hands, brow furrowed in helpless frustration as he looks at his pale, red-patches-at-top-of-cheeks reflection in the mirror.

_Oh, __this __does __bring__ back __memories, _Ryuuken thinks to himself with more than a touch of the acerbic. He remembers the days when, a first-year in junior high school, he still struggled to properly knot his tie. His mother had, with an air of weary fondness, taken him aside each time and reminded him of what needed to be done to properly knot his tie, until the lesson sunk in and Ryuuken could do it without help. It had been so frustrating as an irritated twelve-year-old, convinced that the necktie was a device specially meant to torture the hapless.

For his habits, Uryuu might be considered precocious, an adult in child's flesh, but looking at him fumbling with the ways to knot his necktie, he's never looked more of a child to his father than he does now. He looks so young, even more lost than what's normal for him. _For__ once, __he __looks __his __age, __maybe __even __younger than that. _Uryuu is too wrapped up in his fruitless efforts to notice his father standing there. _When__ was __the __last __time __he __seemed __wholly __a __child?_

Ryuuken strongly considers heading on to work without comment or letting Uryuu know he was ever there. Uryuu can go to his school and get his homeroom teacher to knot his tie for him if he doesn't figure it out on his own; it probably wouldn't be the first time the teacher got such a request. _It__'__s__ not __like __he__'__d __ever __notice__ the __difference __anyways._

To his own surprise, Ryuuken doesn't find himself doing that. Instead, he steps forward, and raps on the door frame to get Uryuu's attention.

Uryuu looks up, his flush darkening. His hands fall limply to his side and he takes a step back further into the bathroom, eyes fixed on the floor. No response comes from him, neither an accusation nor a plea for help, though Ryuuken can sense both burning on the tip of his tongue.

The absurdity of the whole situation strikes Ryuuken, before he gets over it and stretches out his hands. "Hold your head up and watch carefully," he murmurs tiredly, taking the ends of Uryuu's tie in his hands. "I'm only doing this once."

Ryuuken ignores Uryuu's dumbfounded expression as he, with uncharacteristic gentleness, knots his tie properly so he won't show up to junior high on his first day anything but fully dressed. When he's done and starts to move away, Ryuuken hears Uryuu mutter, in the most flabbergasted voice possible (_as__ though __this __was __some __insanely __surreal __dream__—__and __who __knows? __It __might __have __been._), "…Thank you?"

Ryuuken pretends as though he didn't hear, so he doesn't have to look at him and talk. He can't find the words with which to explain this.


	109. 109: Return

**Title**: Return**  
>AN**: And with this, I have passed the 100,000 word mark.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>If Ryuuken was to be asked the number of times he's ever stayed all-night at work, he probably wouldn't be able to give an accurate answer, primarily because half of the time if he's at work overnight it's because he's fallen asleep there. He's gotten better about that over the years, but there are still times when he will fall asleep at his desk and wake up too late to go back home. From there, there's nothing for it but to go back to work, and use the lunch break to run home, shower, change his clothes and hurry back.<p>

Of course, sometimes he will fall asleep at his desk at home too, and the only thing that wakes him up is morning sunlight seeping through the window, his alarm clock blaring so loudly that hearing it through the too-thin walls is no difficulty, or Uryuu shoving food under his nose because he thinks he need to eat more. Uryuu still does that, surprisingly enough; Ryuuken isn't sure why, given what their relationship has become, but the boy seems to take a perverse pleasure in pointing out deficiencies in Ryuuken's eating habits, such as his habit of forgetting to eat. Given that Uryuu all but disappears when he turns sideways Ryuuken doesn't think he has any room to be telling _him_ he needs to eat more, but anyways…

That's not the point. It's just Ryuuken's thoughts, mind forever going to random subjects when he's tired, as he sits on the couch with all the lights turned off to conserve energy. The false light preceding dawn puts a gray pall over the grass and the birch tree in the small yard outside; all is silent. He stares out the window, and thinks about Uryuu pulling all-nighters of his own. _At __least __there__'__s __no __school __today, __so __he __can __get __a __decent __amount__ of __sleep._

Maybe this is the first time Uryuu has been gone so long during the night and maybe it isn't, and this is just the first time Ryuuken has ever noticed. He likes to think that he would have heard Uryuu opening and shutting the front door, but the hard truth is that Ryuuken is a heavy sleeper and Uryuu is by nature extremely quiet. He might have opened and shut the door one night or several so carefully that the sound wasn't enough to wake him.

_He __seems__… __different ._After Soken died, Ryuuken watches as Uryuu flattened out. He watched as his son became two-dimensional and strangely insubstantial, like he wasn't all there anymore. There was only the faintest suggestion of life to him, lost in the sea of grief and guilt and self-castigation, and those suggestions arose only when he was in the grips of anger. Only when he was angry did Uryuu seem like anything but a too-heavily sedated psychiatric patient.

To Ryuuken's eyes, he had seemed entirely too pale, too broken, too desiccated to survive for long. It would be only a matter of time before he blew away on a stiff winter's wind, never to be seen again. Uryuu had always been a subdued, quiet child, more given to fits of melancholy than to joy, but his grandfather's death had taken away what little joy there was and turned him into someone Ryuuken had never known. Ryuuken had been at a loss for words, hadn't known what to do—_There__'__s __no __one __I __could __have __taken __him __to, __no __one __who __wouldn__'__t __have __written __him__ off __as __insane __and __locked __him __up_—so he had just stood by and watched the deterioration as though it were some gruesome spectator sport.

(_Ryuuken __has __watched __Uryuu__'__s __behavior __for the entirety of the child's __life, __and __he__'__s __not __about__ to __stop __now.__ A __lifetime__'__s __worth__ of __information __can __be __gleaned __from __the __aesthetics __of __an __instant. _That's all I need.

_Uryuu comes into the kitchen, bathed in the morning glow and showing up as nearly translucent under the scrutiny of the sunlight. He has skin like a butterfly's wing: thin, veined, and very nearly see-through, the only thing stopping observers from peering straight through being the sparse injection of pigment._

_All__ the __blood __was__ washed __off __him __the __night __before_—I thought it would never stop flowing, down the drain, turning the water red. _Not__ a __trace __of __it __remains, __none __of __the __blood __matted __in __his __hair __and __sticking __to __his __skin, __the __dirt __ingrained __under __his __fingernails __or __the __gore __splattered __all __over. __Just __giving __the __young __boy __a __cursory __glance, __no __one __would __be __able __to __guess __that __he __faced __down __death __yesterday._

_Ryuuken can tell, though. Uryuu is stiff and moving slowly, wearily, as though his bones and joints are those of a centenarian instead of an eight-year-old's. His face is white and taut, lip twitching wildly and eyes horridly bloodshot and rimmed in red, even if they are dry. Tears are threatening with every moment, but his eyes are dry._

_The child spent the night sleeping fitfully on the couch underneath a blanket; Ryuuken himself collapsed on the chair by the couch, keeping his eyes trained on Uryuu until they had drooped so far that he couldn't keep them open anymore. Now, Uryuu goes to the sink to pour a glass of water. He does not attempt to get anything to eat; he throws the toast Ryuuken is eating in silence a sickened look, and Ryuuken knows better than to offer him any._

Devastated, _Ryuuken __decides, __jerking __his __eyes __away __from __Uryuu __and __gulping __down__ his __coffee, _and understandably so, _he__ allows, __remembering __his __own __less-than-composed __reaction __to __his __mother__'__s __death, __and __later __to __Sayuri__'__s __as __well. __Some __ill-defined __spike __of __jealousy __does __rear __its __head__ at __the __sight __of __Uryuu__'__s __eyes, __dull, __exhausted, __the__ irises __shockingly __blue __against __scarlet __sclera, __though.)_

Through his newfound, quite dangerous habit, Uryuu has rediscovered the spark of life. Ryuuken looks at him now, in the moments when they aren't going for each other throats, and doesn't see the flimsy little paper doll he used to see. His face is still pale, but his eyes gleam and there's some hint of color to his skin. Ryuuken just wishes he hadn't come back to himself like this.

_Why __couldn__'__t __he __have __just __stuck__ to __his __knitting __needles?_ Ryuuken wonders acerbically. _I __could __handle __the __sewing. __It__'__s __a __constructive __outlet __and__ it__'__s __not what anyone would consider __life-threatening, __not __unless __that __needle _really _goes __off-course. __He __seemed __perfectly __content __with __the __sewing, __but __apparently __not.__ There__'__s __a __wide __difference __between __the __natures __of __sewing __and__ running __off __after __school__ and__ at __night __hunting __Hollows, __Uryuu._

_I__ suppose __I __could __call__ the__ police __on __him, __but __it__'__s __not __like __I __know __where __he__'__s __going, __and __what __am __I __supposed __to __tell __them?__ That __my __son __decided __to __take __up __the __mantle __of __teenage __rebellion __a __year __early __and __spends __half __his __nights __slaying __supernatural __creatures __invisible __to __the __general __populace. _Ryuuken rolls his eyes. _I__ can __just __imagine __their __response. __Blank __stares, __then__ laughter, __then __insults. __Oh __yes, __I__ can __see __it __now._

_But__ what __happens __if __they __come __to __me __first? _Ryuuken does imagine, sometimes, that the police will show up on his door for the third time in his life. He looks at the blood in dried rivulets on Uryuu's arms, and he does imagine it.

It's strange how exhausted Uryuu is after he's killed a Hollow, completely out of breath and very nearly passing out in the doorway. Yes, Ryuuken does remember the days so he does remember how exhausting it was, the business of killing Hollows. But Uryuu always drags his feet getting home after that and he can barely keep his eyes open; Ryuuken remembers having more energy than that himself. He'd been able to stay awake after killing a Hollow; he hadn't needed sleep immediately afterwards.

And of course, Uryuu's always catching colds after he gets back home. Not high fevers, just the low ones that don't quite justify keeping him home from school but still give Ryuuken visions of Uryuu passing out in the middle of a classroom.

He's sick, he's pale, he's jittery and tense, he's covered in cuts and bruises, but he seems more alive now than he has in years. Ryuuken once more shares his house with a human being in place of the pale imitation of such. He shares his house with a human being who has passions and more than just grief and anger for emotions.

But Ryuuken will do whatever he can to tear down that which has brought Uryuu back to this place.

Ryuuken sighs, and rubs his forehead wearily, stinging eyes fixed on the window. _Here__'__s __hoping __he __can__ still __walk __to __get __home. __I __refuse __to __chase __after __him__ if __he __insists __on __indulging __in __this __folly. _He can share the house with a human being or a shadow of one. So long as Uryuu is alive to see the morning sunlight, he doesn't care which.

(_But__ increasingly, __he __wonders __why __he __strains __so __much. __If __Uryuu __insists __on __taking __the __fast__ road __towards __death, __detaching __himself __from__ him __is __the __only __way __to __avoid __pain __at __the __end __of __that __road._)


	110. 110: History

**Title**: History**  
>AN**: Not much to say here.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>"Will you just hold still?" Ryuuken snaps, grabbing Uryuu's arm—the uninjured one—and holding him still until he's sure Uryuu won't try to jump up and retreat to his room; Ryuuken regrets to no end the fact that he never made any attempt to have the lock removed while he still had the time to do so.<p>

Uryuu flinches, though whether from the intense pressure of his father's vice-like grip on his unhurt arm or the sting of the disinfectant on the other Ryuuken can't be sure, just like he can't be sure whether the coughing comes from the powerful odor of the antiseptic or if Uryuu's just catching a cold. Considering he's been running around outside so many nights during this time of year, Ryuuken can't help but think that he's pretty much asking for a cold.

They say history repeats itself, whether we want it to or not. Ryuuken can't help but subscribe to that theory, given how closely this scene mirrors those from the past.

Ryuuken can still remember peeking through his door as a child in the late hours of the night or early hours of the morning to spot his parents at the kitchen table, Soken hissing in discomfort as Isono shook her head and knotted bandages more closely around a wound.

"_You could have avoided all of this, you know."_

"_How?" Soken asks, genuinely confused. He pulls away from the sting of the antiseptic, but one look from his wife has him sitting still in the kitchen chair and submitting to her ministrations. For all her scolding, Isono makes no attempt to hide the fact that she is genuinely worried; it's made manifest by her furrowed brow and the way her hands twitch when she isn't holding something in them._

_Though __he __normally __takes __his __mother__'__s__ side __in __these "__discussions", __Ryuuken, __standing __in __the __hall __and __doing __his __best__ not __to __be __noticed __by __his __parents,__ can__'__t __help__ but __agree __with __his __father __at __this __point. _Yes, how?

_Isono sighs wearily, brow furrowed and mouth forming a thin, worried line. "I don't know. But I'm sure you could have thought of something if you'd tried hard enough." She goes for the stove to check on the water she has boiling; she won't use it for the injuries if it burns._

Ryuuken woke up every time his father came in too late or too early, without fail. He's a heavy sleeper, but some subliminal hint would wake him up every time his father came back home during the dark hours.

At times, he would be caught, and while Isono would inevitably frown and shoo him off to bed, no matter what his age, Soken, on one occasion, crooked his finger toward Ryuuken in defiance of his wife, motioning him over.

"_Woke you up again, did I?" Soken asks ruefully. He sits at the kitchen table, clapping a hand over his cheek, propping his elbow up on the table. Ryuuken just looks at him—he's quite tired and not entirely sure how he should be reacting to this—and Soken just laughs tiredly and shakes his head. "For heaven's sake, child; are you taking lessons from your mother?"_

"_I heard that."_

"_Sorry, Isono."_

A Quincy, when injured in the process of hunting Hollows, generally prefers to tend to themselves, even if they have no idea how to treat wounds. Ryuuken can only assume that it's motivated by pride or a desire not to alarm loved ones—_Probably __pride. __Pride__ seems __to __be __at __the __root __of __everything. __Pride was our people's deadly sin, __lead __them __to __their __deaths; __pride __is __why __we __live __in __hiding __as __we __do__ now, skulking in the dark and __praying __that __we__ do__ not __draw __the __attention __of __the __Shinigami __on to __ourselves. _Well, that's how Uryuu's living anyways. Ryuuken has nothing to hide, not anymore. He does nothing these days that could possibly draw the Shinigami's ire, and does not see the point in tempting fate.

Of course, Uryuu and Soken weren't the only ones running off, risking their lives.

"_I told you; it's nothing." An embarrassed flush starts to creep up Sayuri's neck and into her pale face. She tries to jerk her hand away and fails. "Go back to bed."_

"_It won't be 'nothing' if all these cuts get infected," Ryuuken remarks, continuing to dab gingerly at the cuts on her hand with hot water, marveling at how such shallow cuts, even if they are numerous, can bleed so much. There is blood soaking her white sleeve cuff and smeared against her skin, shored up around her fingernails. "Please just humor me."_

_The locale for such a discussion is typical of that of a pair of financially struggling newlyweds. A cramped, tiny three-room apartment, the dark walls and the fact that there are books and cardboard boxes stacked haphazardly everywhere making it seem even smaller. This is actually the third apartment Ryuuken and Sayuri have lived in since getting married, forever looking for and never quite finding the ideal combination of decent living quarters and reasonable rent. Where they live now is the best that can be managed by a store worker and a doctor still swamped by student debt._

"_I'm surprised you didn't wake up when I first got out of bed," Sayuri says softly. She's not really trying to remove her hand from his grip anymore. "I was in a hurry; it's not like I was trying to be particularly quiet._

_Ryuuken shrugs, not meeting her gaze. It's the truth. He hadn't woken up until he heard someone fumbling around in the bathroom, and came in to find Sayuri holding her right hand under the sink faucet, trying to wash away all the blood. "I was tired. And the alarm clock's as loud as it is for a reason."_

_She rolls her eyes. "Don't I know it. By the way, the landlord was around earlier today."_

That's never good. _Ryuuken __sighs __and __squeezes __his __eyes __tightly __shut.__ "__What __did __he __want?__" __he __asks,__ quite __sure __he __doesn__'__t __want __to __hear __the __answer._

"_He thinks all your books are a fire hazard."_

"_Well you can tell Arakawa-san—"_

"_I agree with him."_

"_What?"_

_They fall to silence. Silence is typical of them if they're awake at this time of night, and Sayuri knows Ryuuken well enough to know that he doesn't really want to talk about Hollows anyways. There are things they don't talk about, things they never talk about because it's too anxiety-inducing or too painful, things that have nothing to do with Hollows, and those things aren't elaborated on._

_However, Ryuuken will eventually get curious as to how she got those injuries, and Sayuri will talk about a Hollow with ridiculously long, spindly legs like those of a spider, with claws as thin as needles (accounting for all those cuts), but with teeth that more than make up for the claws' lack of power._

_He really doesn't know where the light in her eyes when she speaks of these things comes from, but listens anyways._

One was despised and the other loved, and they were both so incredibly reckless as regards to their own physical safety. For a moment, Ryuuken's eyes cloud, as he wonders if his life from now on is never going to be anything but one giant flashback. That prospect is hardly one he finds appealing. _The__ stuff __of __nightmares, __I __have__ no __doubt._

Then…

"For the last time: _hold __still_."

"That hurts!" Uryuu hisses in response, and whether he's complaining of the bite of the disinfectant on his cuts or Ryuuken's vice-like grip on his arm is difficult to determine. On his father's curt command, he has removed his shirt and sits on the couch, but it's clear he only submits to Ryuuken's ministrations out of dread of what will happen if he doesn't comply. And even then, Uryuu seems to be seriously weighing which is less appealing to him. He glares at his father, but his bones ache of fatigue and his wariness could not be more manifest if he was displaying it deliberately.

Ryuuken more than matches Uryuu's sullen glare with a cold glower. "If you would display some semblance of common sense, you would not be in the position to feel pain, _would __you, _Uryuu?"

Perhaps just to prove him wrong, Uryuu shows his first shred of common sense all day and doesn't rise to the bait. Ryuuken continues to apply disinfectant, occasionally picking gravel or other debris from the wounds and thinking of flashbacks and conversations shared at three in the morning.


	111. 111: Transparent

**Title**: Transparent**  
>AN**: Not much to say here either. You guys know the drill by now.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>Even wondering why he should worry about one so clearly intent on meeting a gruesome end, when Ryuuken sees the signs of injury or smells blood on Uryuu's body, his mind automatically turns to getting out bandages and antiseptic, snapping at Uryuu to wait for him in the living room.<p>

_He's__ certainly __burning __through __my __supply __of __antiseptic __with __reckless__ abandon. _Ryuuken's lips thin sourly as he gets a roll of bandages and the familiar opaque green bottle or antiseptic out of the medicine cabinet. Yesterday marked the second time this month that Ryuuken had to go buy more antiseptic, bandages and cotton swabs, going to a different grocery store so as not to draw suspicion. He's considering buying in bulk, if he can find antiseptic and gauze bandages, not to mention cotton swabs, anywhere in bulk.

The only good news is that, though Ryuuken can still tell if Uryuu's recently been battling Hollows if he looks beat-up, he does seem to be getting a little better about avoiding claws and teeth and swipes from limbs. The lacerations and contusions are still there, but they're not quite so deep, not quite so profound against tender skin.

_Experience is with no doubt the cruelest teacher Uryuu could possibly have, but it is the only one he heeds nowadays. The main stipulation in the lesson experience gives is that Uryuu will only learn if he isn't killed in the process. Oh yes, he'll learn, but given his nature, his surviving the lesson at all is another matter entirely._

If Uryuu is actually learning anything from his experiences, he doesn't bring that knowledge home, where another type of battling awaits. At home he is nearly silent when not angered, avoidant, secretive. He does what he can to hide his wounds but he always betrays himself somehow, Ryuuken can always tell, an once found out that familiar meeting of opposites occurs and Uryuu is swamped with anger and dread.

_He uses the autumn cold as an excuse to use long sleeves and scarves to conceal his wounds, but he couldn't be more transparent if he was made of glass._

Uryuu, pale, thin, thirteen years old, probably has not even the slightest conception of the sort of danger he puts himself in. It's not like he's ever had much of a sense of danger, and Ryuuken knows the mentality of risk takers and adrenaline junkies: _It __can __happen __to __everyone __else __but __it __will __never __happen __to __me. __It __couldn't __possibly __happen __to __me. __I __won't __possibly __die._

Ryuuken begs to differ. Uryuu has already been injured so many times. There's a patch, uneven scar on his back from the very first time, so pale that it nearly disappears into spare flesh, but still there for Ryuuken to spot every time he winds bandages around cuts. In future, there will only be more to come, if Uryuu continues on this path.

It will only be a matter of time before Uryuu starts breaking bones. When that day comes, Ryuuken will bind the bandages more tightly, give Uryuu plenty of painkillers and tell him to try not to put too much weight on the affected area, but unless the injuries can be convincingly explained away, he won't take Uryuu to the hospital. More than one of the cuts Uryuu has gotten in the past has needed stitches, but in order to seek treatment what they need more is a plausible explanation as to how Uryuu got those injuries in the first place, and felling supernatural abominations does _not_ fall into the category of plausible.

_If __the__ injury's __bad __enough__ or __it __can __be __explained __away __as __something __else, __perhaps__ then __he __can __be __taken__ to __receive __proper __care. __Until __then, __this __will__ have __to __do_.

Uryuu has always looked a touch frail. Ashen, thin skin, brittle fingernails so easily split or broken, a drawn, fatigued-looking face; he's had extremely low blood pressure since he was about five, which is probably part of why he's so pale. So thin that if Ryuuken presses a finger into his son's shoulder he can, quite easily, feel the bone hidden by skin and muscle tissue.

The fact that he's constantly swathed in bandages these days isn't helping, though, Ryuuken is sure, it goes over wonderfully with Uryuu's female classmates. He remembers with a grimace the way the girls in _his_ class would suddenly transform into clucking mother hens if he came to school sporting bandages. Then again, Ryuuken had actually interacted with his classmates, while Uryuu shows no sign of doing the same. That might make a difference in the scheme of things.

_He's __either __insanely __reckless, __suicidal, __or __both; no one ever said it couldn't be both. __If __that's __the __case, __why __should __I __even __step __in __to __intervene? _It's not like Ryuuken can stop him. Demanding that Uryuu stop running off after Hollows will have no effect; in fact, it seems as though telling Uryuu _not _to do something is guaranteed to have the exact opposite effect. Even if Uryuu is terrified of his reactions to seeing the signs of battle on him, it doesn't seem to be enough to make him stop.

_If__ he __wants __to __join __his __grandfather __so __badly__… _Ryuuken treats Uryuu's wounds out of habit, because when he sees someone wounded his first instinct is to pull them aside to do what he can to treat them. That has not changed. But to spare thoughts towards the safety of one who, to Ryuuken's eyes, would so much rather not be worried about, it makes no sense.

"_You.__ Sit__ down._ Now._"_

_Even if he is disobedient with a foolish streak as wide as the road outside, Uryuu sometimes chooses to behave in a manner other than stupid, and he slides to the couch with a glare on his face. He sits on the very edge of the couch with a strange sort of primness completely at odd with the claw marks on his arms._

"_Broken __bones?"_

"_None."_

"_For__ now, __anyways."_

_Uryuu's__ glower __deepens, __and __Ryuuken __can __tell __he's __expending __all __effort __not __to __shy__ away __from __his__ touch, __as __he __starts __to __dab __at __the__ claw __marks __with __antiseptic. __At __the __same __time, __a__ spasm__ of __something __very __different __from__ defiance __passes __over __Uryuu's __face__ when __he __turns __his __head__ away,__ thinking __Ryuuken __can't __see__—__something __closely __resembling__ misery_.

It makes no sense.


	112. 112: Discovery

**Title**: Discovery**  
>AN**: For information on what a hikikomori is, go to its trope page on TV tropes, which I find to be a quite informative source, or look at the Wikipedia article.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>With nothing but women's magazines to read in the waiting room, Ryuuken wishes more than ever that he'd realized that things would be taking so long here, so he would have known to bring a book. Ryuuken would so much rather be looking at the more gruesome illustrations of infection diseases than expose himself to the soul-scarring abomination that is yellow journalism. As it stands, he steadfastly ignores the source of evil sitting in a stack next to him and broods to fill the time.<p>

Usually, Ryuuken would be at home by this time of night. He has been trying to get home before odd hours of the morning, if only because half of the time Uryuu needs to be patched up and he seems to find the idea of ignoring his wounds more appealing than at least putting a band-aid on them. That's the whole reason they're here tonight.

In the past, Uryuu had to go without proper care when he was injured by a Hollow since the multiple scratches and bruises didn't look like they had been caused by anything other than some sort of wild animal. The problem with that was that they looked like they were made by wild animals that weren't going to be found anywhere near Karakura Town, or anywhere on Earth, for that matter. Uryuu has needed stitches at least twice but didn't get them because Ryuuken wasn't willing to delve quite that deep into the realm of "field medicine." He didn't have the proper equipment, his house, though clean, was far from fitting the standards of a sterile setting, and if Uryuu ended up with a rampant infection as a result Ryuuken would have only had himself to blame.

Today, it was just bruises, and in the absence of long, uneven, bizarre-looking claw marks, Ryuuken decided that Uryuu could be taken to the hospital without having to give some far-fetched explanation of how he got them. The bruises are huge, spreading across his back and chest, deep black at the edges and get progressively redder towards the middle. Normally Ryuuken wouldn't pay much attention to bruises, but these are large and deep enough that, to be safe, Uryuu should probably be checked over for internal injury.

That's how he finds himself sitting in the hospital waiting room, surrounded by sneezing, coughing people. One is even vomiting into a bucket—_I__ hope__ someone __sees __to __him __soon; __he__'__s __going __to __get __horribly __dehydrated __like __that. _Not a word on the subject of Uryuu comes, and Ryuuken tugs at his shirt collar, growing tense in spite of himself.

_It__ doesn__'__t __take__ this __long__ to __check __for __internal __injuries, _he tells himself, _not__ usually. __I __suppose__ they __could __just __be __being__ thorough. __If __that__'__s __the __case, __I __won__'__t __complain, __but __I __wish __they __would __have __let __me__ do __this __myself._ Apparently it's unprofessional for a doctor to see to his own child, or the staff just thought Ryuuken looked too tired to do the job properly. Either way, Ryuuken isn't one to make a spectacle of himself and he deferred. Uryuu looked extremely nervous about being in the same room with and examined by a stranger, but he'll just have to get over it.

_I__ suppose __he __could __have__ some __sort __of __internal __injury __after __all, __and __they__'__re __treating__ him, _Ryuuken allows. _That __would __explain __why __I__'__ve __been __waiting __for __so __long, __but __if __that__'__s __the __case, __I __like __to __think __someone __would __have __come__ to__ talk __to __me by now. __I__ should __have __gone __with __them._

Ryuuken has a moment when he imagines Uryuu being poked and prodded by a nurse, wincing at the pain and flinching at the touch of anyone, let alone a stranger, before being subjected to closer examination, never answering the nurse's questions except to shake his head yes or no. _100__ yen __says __it __will__ take __five __minutes __for __Uryuu __to __have __everyone __there __convinced __he__'__s __a __hikikomori. _As amusing (in a sardonic sort of way) a thought as it is, Ryuuken isn't smiling. He hopes Uryuu will comport himself with some measure of dignity, but more than that he hopes nothing is seriously wrong.

_He__ doesn__'__t __need __to __be__ staying __in __the __hospital __for __extended __periods __of __time. __He __can__'__t __afford __to __miss __too __much __school_.

After a while more of interminable waiting, a familiar nurse with chin-length dark brown hair sticks her head out of a side door. Her eyes search the room anxiously until she spots Ryuuken and walks over to him, clutching her clipboard to her chest and biting her lip.

For himself, Ryuuken has had his eyes fixed on the glossy linoleum floor for some time, and frankly is starting to drift off. He doesn't notice the nurse trying to get his attention until she taps his shoulder. "Sir?"

Shaking off the beginnings of sleep, Ryuuken looks up to meet Junko's gaze. "Yes?" he asks quietly.

Junko motions for them to step back through the side door for more privacy, and when the door has been shut she summons up a small, rather nervous smile. Sasaki Junko, if Ryuuken recalls, is quite young. She's been working at the hospital for a little less than a year and her natural temperament is a bit timid, though she has shown talent. "There's no sign of internal injury; the bruises should be gone within the space of a week or two."

Ryuuken nods, before fixing her in a piercing gaze. "That's good, but there's something else, isn't there?"

She nods. "Uryuu-kun has very low blood pressure—"

_I__ wonder __if __she __called __him __that __to __his __face_.

"—and there were some other things." Junko trails off, gnawing at her lip again and looking away. Her behavior reminds Ryuuken irresistibly of a six-year-old Uryuu, terrified of angering him by saying or doing the wrong thing.

"Whatever it is, Sasaki-san," Ryuuken says wearily, "I highly doubt it's your fault, and judging by that look of trepidation on your face it's probably important so you would do better to just tell me now."

Junko's grip on the clipboard tightens. "We did a blood test to check his red blood cell count. Umm, sir, were you aware that your son is anemic?"

Ryuuken's only response is to tear the clipboard from her grasp.


	113. 113: Anemia

**Title**: Anemia**  
>AN**: I've sort of been building up to the anemia thing for a while now. Ryuuken even spotted some of the symptoms in previous chapters—pale skin, low blood pressure, brittle fingernails—and I think it was a case of him seeing things but not being able to put two and two together. As for Junko's change of character, well, that's another case of Ryuuken's lack of observational skills when it comes to the personalities of others.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>In retrospect, Ryuuken supposes he should have seen this coming. <em>I <em>_wonder __how __long__… _

If he looks back, the symptoms were staring him in the face the whole time—low blood pressure, pallor, fingernails both brittle and soft, fatigue, disturbed sleep (Though personally, Ryuuken suspects the pallor and the disturbed sleep have little to do with any _physical_ health problems of Uryuu's). _I __should __have __seen __this, __should __have __foreseen __it. __I've __treated __patients __who__ developed __anemia __before; __I __should __have __recognized __the__ symptoms before they got this bad._

Of course, hindsight tends to be annoying, and it's no less annoying now as Ryuuken goes over the facts.

Enough blood loss can induce anemia in even the healthiest human being, and Uryuu is far from being that. He's been losing blood at a steady rate since he started going after Hollows a little over a year ago. Chances are Uryuu's had the condition for months and no one ever picked up on anything wrong until now.

On the other hand, maybe the blood loss wasn't the cause of Uryuu developing anemia. Sure, it has to have played a role, exacerbated the condition, but Ryuuken supposes that Uryuu could have had anemia for years and, until he started fighting Hollows, there wasn't anything enough to make it bad enough to be noticed.

The specific type of anemia Uryuu has been diagnosed with is iron deficiency anemia. _He's__ in__ the __right __age __group __for __it. _Uryuu could just have a natural inability to absorb iron properly. That sort of thing tends to be genetic and unless there's something about his own family history that he doesn't know (which seems quite unlikely), Ryuuken supposes Uryuu got it from his mother's side of the family; there was enough intermarrying in her line to make such a thing possible.

Then again, Sayuri never showed signs of being anemic herself, at least none that Ryuuken could spot (though as he's learning now, his observational skills apparently don't count for as much as he thought they did), so unless Uryuu is a genetic throwback to earlier generations on either side of his family, that's probably not it either.

_It __would __probably __be __his __diet, __then._ Uryuu is quite thin, and a diet poor enough in iron can cause iron deficiencies. It would account for the anemia, and explain why, if Uryuu has had it for a while like Ryuuken suspects, the symptoms were never clearly apparent until recently.

On a whim, Ryuuken goes to inspect the contents of the refrigerator and the cupboards. From there, he thinks he can get a relative idea of what Uryuu's eating from day to day (it never occurs to him to just ask), and if he's not eating a lot of iron-rich foods.

_Oh__… __Oh__ my._ In the cupboard, there is only a box of Ritz crackers; nothing else, not even a bag of rice. In the refrigerator, the only thing that adorns the shelves is a loaf of bread and a head of lettuce that smells like it passed its prime over a week ago. _Well__… __I__ guess __I __do__ need __to __go __out and get some groceries__after __all. __Some __milk__ and __eggs, __at __least._

Moving away from that, throwing out the lettuce and mostly managing not to gag, and resolving to go to a grocery store later, Ryuuken addresses his son directly.

"Alright." Ryuuken holds the bottle of pills up so he can read the instructions, tone brisk and business-like. "This is an iron supplement, which you need to be taking once a day starting tomorrow. Take _only _one a day and always take it with food, never without." He shoots a stern gaze at Uryuu, who for himself looks very tired, and very pale. "If you stop taking it there is a good chance you will get very sick. Do you understand?"

Uryuu nods tiredly and takes the bottle from him, and from there Ryuuken steps out the front door to go buy some groceries. _I__ can't __remember __the __last __time__ the __refrigerator __was __quite __that __empty._

-0-0-0-

The examination was not what Uryuu would have called a comfortable one, not just because he was in a not-inconsiderable amount of pain throughout. _I __sort __of__ look __like __a __peach__ after __someone's __been __kicking __it __up __and __down__ the __high __street, _he muses absently, peering at the great dark patches on his chest. He's always known that bruises hurt—he's not stupid—but Uryuu never knew that bruises could ache and scream every time he draws a breath.

Junko was bright and chirpy. She addressed Uryuu by his given name which, despite his desire for familiarity with someone, _anyone_, annoyed him, since Junko was more or less a stranger. That could be easily enough ignored though, given that she was obviously expending every effort to put him at his ease. Uryuu certainly appreciated the fact that she hadn't asked how he'd gotten these bruises in the first place.

She poked and prodded him for the better part of five minutes, asking a series of questions that Uryuu got the impression where important. Junko asked him where the pain was most intense, if he felt lightheaded or dizzy, if he was short of breath, whether or not he had felt nauseated at all during the day. Uryuu answered honestly, growing frankly more nervous with each question asked of him, despite Junko attempting to make him feel more comfortable. _Exactly __what __is __all __of __this __supposed__ to __mean?_

The young nurse nodded to each answer, scribbling on her clipboard. Then, as she looked at him, her demeanor changed. Brow drew up as Junko looked at Uryuu very hard up and down, eyes lingering on his hands. Uryuu can only assume that she's noticed his fingernails, and he hides his fingertips from view; he's more than a little self-conscious about how soft and brittle his fingernails are.

Again, Junko held a stethoscope over his heart, frowning as she listened to the admittedly rather jittery heartbeat. Then, there was the blood smear.

"_Uryuu-kun__…__"_

Could you please not call me that? _Uryuu __thinks __to __himself, __but __neglects __to __ask __out __loud. __The __young __nurse, __Sasaki __Junko, __as __she's __introduced __herself, __has __gone __out __of __her __way __to __be __kind __to __him. __Even __with __his __deficient __social __skills, __he'd __rather __not __alienate __her. __He __looks __up __and __attempts __to __feign __some __interest, __too __tired __and __too __sore __to __dredge __up__ the __real __thing._

_Junko's brown eyes are apologetic as she produces a thin, sharp instrument; Uryuu eyes it dubiously. "I'm going to do something called a blood smear. Hold out your hand."_

_Despite his misgivings about a "blood smear", Uryuu does as he is told, making sure to offer his right hand instead of his left. It's over more quickly than Uryuu expected, Junko holding her gloved hand over his to smear the droplet of blood onto a clear plastic slide._

"_Sasaki-san?"__ Uryuu__ can't __quite __conceal __the __nervousness __in __his __voice __from __her. __"If __you__ don't __mind __me __asking, __why __do__ you __need __my __blood?"_

_She smiles weakly. _"_I __just __want __to __do __some __tests. __I'll __be __back __soon,__ Uryuu-kun; __just __wait __here."_

She came back with a diagnosis of anemia, and Uryuu was left with a great many questions that weren't sufficiently answered.

Ryuuken has gone out to buy groceries, and Uryuu does what he often does when he's sure he's alone: he goes in to his father's office, and goes searching through the books for answers no one at the hospital was willing to provide him.

Recently into Ryuuken's possession there has come a home computer. It sits in the corner of the office, gathering dust; Uryuu's not entirely sure how his father found room for it among all the books. Uryuu doesn't touch it. For one, he's not at all confident in his abilities to navigate a computer or the internet. For another, while he's not sure, Uryuu just gets the feeling that if Ryuuken noticed that he was messing with his computer, there would be Hell to pay. Instead, he contents himself with searching through all the books.

It takes a while to find what he's looking for. Uryuu is at all times listening for the sound of a car pulling up in the driveway, and jumps at every little creak. From his vague pre-existing knowledge concerning anemia, Uryuu knows it's something that affects the blood, and finally he comes across a book entitled _Disorders__ of __the __Blood,_ sits down, and looks through it.

_Anemia, _the dusty old tome alleges, _is__ a__ drastic__ decrease __in __the __number__ of __red__ blood __cells __in__ circulation __throughout __the __body. _A few pages later, there is a description of iron deficiency anemia that reads, _Iron __deficiency __anemia __is __a __commonplace __anemia __that __occurs __when __iron __loss, __due __to __malabsorption, __heavy __blood __loss, __or __poor __diet, __is __so __great __that __hemoglobin __can not __be __properly __formed._

According to the book, low enough oxygen levels in the blood can lead to a heart attack, and from there, death. Other symptoms include but are not limited to pallor, soft or brittle fingernails (_That__ explains __why__ she __was __staring __at __my__ hands_), fatigue, weakness, shortness of breath and impaired immune function.

Uryuu wonders if he should be at all frightened by any of this, frightened by the thought that there's something wrong with him, something that could eventually result in his death if not properly controlled.

He shakes off the thought with tired indifference and the disinterest of one who cares little for his own health, replacing the book and ghosting out of the room as though he was never there (The only way he likes it). Uryuu stands close to death every day. This makes no difference to him.


	114. 114: Dismantle

**Title**: Dismantle**  
>AN**: I am now past 300 reviews.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>"Well look at you." Uryuu stiffens, but doesn't look up, hand holding the soaked washcloth pausing over the other, bleeding hand. <em>Please <em>_just __go __away.__ Please. _"You're starting to do this on your own, are you?"

Ryuuken doesn't go away, and Uryuu doesn't answer, even knowing that it's going to provoke nothing but cold ire. It's not like words are a better option; really, Uryuu can't win. He just can't, no matter how hard he tries.

Searching back into the depths of memory, Uryuu can't really remember a time when there was nothing resembling strife written on the walls of this house. This has always been a house of trouble, a house of conflict, a house of discord. Even when he was so small that his only inkling of things wrong were vague feelings, Uryuu knew. There was always something missing, always some blight on the walls, always anger in their hearts.

When he was younger, Uryuu had perhaps been more idealistic. He had believed that things would get better when he was older, that he would understand his father better when he was older and he would be able to avoid angering him. He thought that maybe he and Ryuuken would find some common ground, that they would be able to live with each other.

It never happened.

As Uryuu got older, all he could see were the cracks widening into gaping chasms. All he could see were the names of the dead written on the walls, most pure speculation. The fissures that had always been between them weren't getting any smaller, and Uryuu didn't understand his father any better than he had as a small boy.

His guilt was always chasing him, threatening to overtake and completely devour him. Uryuu couldn't deal with his violent grief and guilt over his grandfather's death and the vague, ill-defined grief over the realization of what his reality was, not as he was then. Uryuu's reality had never been a happy one, and he couldn't keep from bowing beneath it. Not as he was then.

Uryuu couldn't stand to let the Hollows run loose anymore so he went after them himself, not quite able to tell himself that it was for any reason other than to assuage his guilt. Still, it was a release for him in the sort of way nothing else could be. Though he may have still been stalked by guilt, Uryuu couldn't hear Its footsteps quite so close; things were a little better on that front.

Hunting Hollows certainly didn't improve any _other _aspect of Uryuu's life. He has come home at least once a week sore and bleeding ever since, having to find many different ways of lying down so he can get sleep without pain shooting out from limbs or torso. The rattle of Tylenol against a bottle has become all too familiar to him, the sting of antiseptic and its acrid smell second nature, and Uryuu is learning to recognize the slightly heavier rattle of iron supplements when he tips one out every morning before breakfast.

Physical pain is second nature to him now, and so are the knots that come into Uryuu's throat every time he comes within the same sphere as his father.

If Uryuu had stopped to think at all, he recognizes now that the conclusion he came to, just before setting out the first time in the dead of night, would have been something along the lines of the revelation that hunting Hollows was not going to make things between him and Ryuuken better. Quite the opposite, really. But this wouldn't be the first time Uryuu was guilty of acting before giving thought, and he sprung into action without really thinking.

_Everything __spirals __out __of __control __so __quickly, _Uryuu admits to himself, biting his lip as he continues ignoring his father's presence in the bathroom. For the moment, Ryuuken seems content to watch him struggling to clean his own wound (his eyes water at the bite of the antiseptic), but Uryuu's sure it won't last forever. Never does.

Uryuu doesn't know what Ryuuken's antipathy towards the lifestyle of exterminating Hollows stems from. He's no longer willing to take the terse explanation of "_Because __you __can__'__t __make __a__ living __off of __it__" _completely at face value. Maybe it was some sort of disillusionment or maybe he was always this way and Uryuu never stood a chance.

_What__ is __it __that __makes __him __hate __this __so __much? __Hate __and __anger __as __hard __as __his __doesn__'__t __come __out __of __nowhere. __There __has __to __be __a __reason, __but __what? __I__ mean, __I__'__ll __probably __never __know,__ but __it __wouldn__'__t __hurt __to __have __some __sort __of __clue. __I __wouldn__'__t __mind __having __some __sort __of __idea_.

_I__'__m__ not __sure __it __matters, __though. __It__'__s __not __going __to __get __me __anywhere_.

Realistically, Uryuu doesn't think that in any softer world, his taking up the mantle of so many dead Quincy and starting to kill Hollows would have made things any easier. Despite knowing how much Ryuuken hated the practice, he'd honestly thought that things would stay the same. Cold silences punctuated by the occasional argument, with the norm being Ryuuken mostly ignoring his existence.

_Maybe I'm more short-sighted than I thought._

Instead of staying the same, Uryuu has watched the cracks widen even further, his father grow colder and more snappish, and everything fall apart in front of him. His whole life being dismantled by unseen hands. Uryuu won't stop now; the calling's in his blood, and just stopping won't change his standing with Ryuuken.

"You're doing it wrong, you know." Uryuu squeezes his eyes shut and wills himself not to respond. "You need hot water, not cold, for when you're cleaning a wound."

Uryuu bites down on his tongue, and Ryuuken just keeps on. "How on Earth do you expect to keep on like this if you can't even clean a wound properly? I suspect you know something about infections. I should think you would exercise more effort to avoid one."

Finally, Uryuu can't restrain himself from words any longer. "I can handle it," he mutters, never looking up, still wiping blood away from his hand and forearm. _Just __don__'__t __look __at __him. __Don__'__t._

"It certainly doesn't look like it," comes the cool observation.

"I can handle it," Uryuu repeats himself, a bite entering his voice.

_Just don't look at him…_


	115. 115: Shambles

**Title**: Shambles**  
>AN**: I covered this exchange in _Break __and __Control,_ but I expanded on it into a full-blown scene, tweaked some of the details, and wrote it from Uryuu's perspective, A: to flesh it out, and B: to keep any of you guys who have read _Break__ and__ Control _from getting bored.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p><em>When<em>_ you __push __someone, __they __probably __won__'__t __respond__ at __first. __As __you __go__ on, __they__'__ll __get __to __the __point __that __when __you __push __them, __they__'__ll __push __back. __However, __you __have __to __be __careful, __because __if __you __push __too __hard, __the __other __person __will __toss __the __game __board, __and __everything__'__s __in __shambles_.

It's a normal morning, unless you count Ryuuken still being at home when Uryuu goes for breakfast, and Uryuu pauses in the threshold to the kitchen, seriously wondering whether or not he should go to school without breakfast and just wait until lunch to eat.

Uryuu doesn't want a fight. He's too tired, just too tired for that. _I__'__ll__ be __fine __without. _Just as he decides he can live without breakfast and turns to leave for school, there comes what he looks forward to the least in the early morning when his back aches and his patience is worn thin by troubled sleep.

"You certainly are in a hurry to leave this morning." Ryuuken's voice is even and incisive, and Uryuu can feel the knife digging under his skin. His tone sharpens, though volume is never raised. "You were last night, as well."

Knowing he'll regret it, Uryuu turns and comes to stand just inside the kitchen. It's not a good situation. Walking out without responding would be incredibly rude, and Ryuuken wouldn't let it stand Staying isn't going to be any better, Uryuu gets the distinct impression. _Nothing __for __it. _He steels himself. _Just __don__'__t __get __angry._ "I don't want to be late to school," he answers simply, keeping one hand gripped tightly around the strap of his bag.

Ryuuken lifts his eyes from the table and seems to stare straight through Uryuu, eyes glassy and expression brittle. "That's not what I mean." He sets aside his cup of coffee, reaching up to adjust his glasses. "You are keeping _quite _late hours, aren't you?"

_You __would __think __we __would __learn __after __a __while __what __and __what __not __to __do, __but __that __just__ doesn__'__t __seem__ possible, __does __it? _Uryuu resists the urge to grimace, realizing with dread that he's being drawn in to this pattern _again.__ There__'__s __too __much __pride __here __and__ too __little __love__—__or__ perhaps __just __too __much. __I__'__m__ not __really __sure __anymore. __You __can__'__t __really __be __sure __of __anything __in__ this __house._

"I guess I do," Uryuu retorts, deciding that if he's going to get sucked into the cycle again he might as well dive in, but at the same time wishing he had a shield like what he once saw in a history book on medieval Europe. _I __could __be __a __knight __with __sword __and __shield, __and __then __I__'__d __be __able __to __defend __myself; __God __knows __arguing __with __him __is__ like __going __up __against __a __fire-breathing__ dragon. __But __wait, __how __would __I __shoot __arrows __if __I __was __holding__ a __sword __and __had __a __shield __strapped__ to __my __arm?_ "It's not really anyone's concern but my own."

_Please let that just be the end of it. Please just let me leave._

"Is it?" A coffin falls square on top of that hope. "I was under the impression that maybe you were looking to—" Ryuuken pauses, a shadow passes over his face, and he seems to visibly stop himself for some reason Uryuu will never be able to fathom, but the damage is done.

Uryuu bristles. "Looking to what?" he snaps. "Looking to get myself killed, is that it?" The heat in his voice ought to be threatening to set the walls alight, but everything is still so cool. In the back of his mind Uryuu longs for the muggy mid-spring air outside. _You__'__ve __said __it __more __than __once. __Why __not __own __up__ to __it __now?_

Ryuuken does not disappoint. "I suppose so," he remarks all-too-lightly. "Your suicidal streak grows broader by the day and with it your common sense continually dwindles."

"I get by just fine." Uryuu's eyes follow Ryuuken's hands rather than his face, clasped together on top of the table. He never notices the way that face he doesn't watch is growing continually darker. "I'm still here, aren't I? I haven't been killed yet—"

"No you do not!" With that harsh, hoarse exclamation, Uryuu's half-rebellious, half-tremulous dark eyes snap up to his father's face. Ryuuken's lips are split in a soundless snarl, his eyes burning coldly. "You do not get by just fine," Ryuuken snaps, voice cracking open like an egg dropped to pavement. "You come home bleeding, bruised, having escaped death by inches.

"Who do you think will care if you never come home, if you…" Again, Uryuu watches in grotesque fascination as Ryuuken pauses and seems to visibly swallow words "…if you end up dead on the ground, blood spilling out from your body and every bone broken, and doesn't leave enough of you behind to be identified by the police or anyone else? Who do you think will care if you are left so mangled that the only way anyone can identify you at all is by doing a blood test, because your face, your hands and all of your teeth have been snatched away?"

Uryuu's eyes flicker to the ground, wanting nothing more than to hide the unwilling flush of shame that sneaks up his neck. But there's something else there too. "I should think you do."

"Time and again I have told you: look at me when you're talking to me."

There's no more shame on his face when he looks Ryuuken in the face. Only anger can be found sparking in Uryuu's eyes. "I should think you do," he repeats stubbornly. _There,__ you __see? __You__'__ve __caught __him. __He __has __to __care. __He __wouldn__'__t __be __snatching __at __me __to __wind __bandages __around __my __cuts __every __time __if __he __didn__'__t __care __just __a__ little __bit._

"What makes you think that?"

Uryuu stiffens. He doesn't even blink as he watches, transfixed, the sheen of ice spreading over his father's face.

Ryuuken spreads his hands over the table. "Why should I care for your fate at all, given that you seem intent on taking your life into your own eyes and speeding towards death? If you are so set on dying, why should I care if you live or die?" His teeth grit and Uryuu can see him straining at the bit to hold on to the last vestiges of his control. "I have no time to waste on suicidal fools, Uryuu."

For what seems an eternity, Uryuu can only stare at him. There is no attempt to hide emotion in that eternity and he doesn't like to think of what must be blooming all over his skin. Maybe he's crying; maybe he's not. Maybe he's maintained some level of control; maybe he hasn't. All he's aware of a roaring numbness bleeding into his bones.

_I… I have to get out. I need air. I need…_

"Fine," he mutters, voice barely audible and a hot, thick lump heavy in his throat. "Fine. That's… that's just perfect. Why do I… I'm leaving," Uryuu tells him. He slips out of the kitchen, through the front door, and is gone.

He's tossed the game board.


	116. 116: Constants

**Title**: Constants**  
>AN**: Nothing much to say.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>This spring has been muggy and rainy, the sidewalk constantly glassy with puddles, the leaves of trees glistening with water beads and soft ground squelching with each step. Today, however, only the former element is present and watery shafts of sunlight peek through dark clouds, which is a good thing since Uryuu forgot his umbrella in his rush to get out of the house.<p>

There are bigger things on his mind to worry about than umbrellas, anyway.

Uryuu's pace, formerly swift but erratic, has evened out. He's going nowhere fast, and doesn't need to. He left far earlier than what's needed to get to school on time. His stomach aches with hunger, but he barely notices. Eyes sting and mind runs at a mile a minute while Uryuu barely seems to move at all. To the smattering of people on the sidewalk, he is invisible, and to him, they are like insubstantial smoke.

_What does he mean, he doesn't care?_

Throughout childhood, there was only one constant Uryuu could count on: Ryuuken's concern for his physical well-being. Uryuu could not always rely on Grandfather to notice (Soken wasn't quite so well-tuned to these things), and after he died, not at all, but Ryuuken always noticed, and he always took steps. Even if it wasn't a sure thing that he'd be gracious about it, Ryuuken always provided medicine for illness and bandages for injury. That was the one thing Uryuu could count on, even when everything else was like a deck of cards all turned face down.

_I __must __have __become __complacent. __That__'__s __the __only __explanation __that __makes __sense. __How __could __I __have __been __so __stupid?_ Over the years, Uryuu has learned something else too. Never take anything Ryuuken says or does that relates to him purely at face value. Everything has a deeper meaning, everything an ulterior motive. Others might think him paranoid for adhering to this belief, but Uryuu knows better than to subscribe to any other train of thought. It's the only thing that works.

But what's supposed to be the ulterior motive behind _this_? Uryuu can not imagine any meaning in Ryuuken's words, the words chasing after him now, driving knives beneath his skin, than the one presented directly to him.

Normally, if Uryuu isn't completely overwhelmed by anger or indignation by Ryuuken's words, he will make some effort to pick them apart. Doing so either helps him calm down or just raises his stress levels to new heights. Today though, he can't. His mind is too much in disorder; Uryuu can not perceive any sort of deeper meaning to those words.

"_I__'__ve __no __time __to __waste __on __suicidal __fools, __Uryuu.__" _Uryuu can remember everything. The words, crisp and clearly enunciated, unmistakable. The tone, unbearably dry, flavored with just the slightest hint of contempt, but mostly just cold. The expression he wore when he said it, cold anger making his face appear cast in ice, derision making his lip curl. And Uryuu remembers how, in the wake of that revelation, he couldn't say a word in retort. He could barely string together a coherent sentence, and had run out of the house, unable to face Ryuuken any longer.

Uryuu feels a hot lick of anger unfurl in his stomach, both against Ryuuken and himself. For Ryuuken, it is anger that he has to be the sort of person who can say these things to his child without any apparent remorse. For himself, no longer possessing enough common sense to suppress his pride and see that the proper response to Ryuuken trying to start an argument with him is to bow out and get away from the situation as quickly as possible.

_I __am __so, _so _stupid.__ Why __do __I __keep __trying __to __argue __with __him? __I__'__m __never __going __to __win, __I__'__m __never __going __to __get __the __upper __hand __against __him. __I__'__ll __be __lucky __if __I __get __a __blow __in __edgewise, __let __alone __stand __my __ground __for__ even __a __minute. __He __always __wins. __He _always _wins, __no __matter __what __I __do._

_Just like today._

Frustration never leaves, anger never abates, but what soon blooms next to anger is an emotion Uryuu has tasted before, so bitter on his tongue that it may as well be sweet: Despair. His dark scowl is replaced by an expression of blank misery. _Why? __Why __would __he __say __that? __Why __would __he __go __to__ the __lengths __he __does __to __keep __me __healthy __and __then __just __turn __around __and __say__ he __doesn__'__t __care?_

_I__ should __think __it __would __be __obvious, _comes the quiet, unwelcome voice at the back of Uryuu's mind; the voice of doubt makes itself heard once again. _If__ he __says __he __doesn__'__t __care __if __you __die __or __not, __it __means __he __does __not __care. __Ryuuken __generally __tends __to __be __rather __upfront __about __these __things. __At __least __as __far __as __we__ know__—__it__'__s __not __like __we__'__re __mind __readers __or __anything; __he __could __be __a __consummate__ liar __for __all __we __know. __Either __way, __he __certainly __sounded__ like __he __meant __it __this __morning.__ You __know __what __that __means._

Yes, he does. Uryuu would do anything to avoid the truth in this situation, but he's caught and he sees his mind's conclusions. _It __must __mean __he __just __doesn__'__t __care. __It __means __that __it __makes __no __difference __to __him __if __I__'__m __alive __or __dead. __That__'__s __what __it __must __mean, __but __why?_

Uryuu has long held the lingering suspicion that he is nothing more to Ryuuken than an obligation, that is fed, clothed and bandaged out of a hollow sense of duty rather than anything resembling paternal fondness. It was something he preferred not to dwell on, just one of the many things that could drive him to a black place with barely any effort. _Is __this __normal? __Are __there __lots __of __families __that __have __dynamics __like __this, __or __are __we __the __only __ones __and__ this __sort __of __thing __makes __us __freaks __of __nature?_

He hasn't really been paying attention to where he's going, and soon it tells on him. Before Uryuu knows what's happening, the dull, familiar pain hits his left shoulder as he knocks into a fellow pedestrian.

"Watch it!" the other exclaims, more annoyed than angry. More than anything though, he just sounds hurried, as though he's going to be late to somewhere if he doesn't hurry on. Picking up on his impatience, Uryuu finds himself with the sudden urge to check his watch.

Uryuu lifts his head momentarily to make a mumbled apology, and is met by brown eyes and a look of reluctant concern. "Are… Are you okay?" the boy asks uncertainly, frowning, when he sees Uryuu's face. He's wearing the same uniform as Uryuu and seems to be the same age, or close to it; come to think of it, Uryuu's seen this boy around, though as with the rest, they've never spoken.

He ducks his head. "Of course I am," he mutters tersely, not seeing the other boy's look of indignation, and continues walking down the street. The encounter with his classmate soon fades from his mind.

_(Things __weren__'__t __always __like __this. __Even __if __Ryuuken__'__s __forgotten, __Uryuu __never __will. _I remember_. __Ryuuken__ was __never __what __anyone __would __call__ properly __affectionate, __but __Uryuu __will __always __remember __the __nights__ when __he __would __let __him__ crawl __into __bed__ next __to __him__ if __he __had __a __nightmare. _Did you always think of me as you do now? Did you always think of me as an obligation and nothing more, even then?)

When Uryuu had thought Ryuuken would care if he came home or not, he had been willing to put up with just about anything. Maybe not gracefully, but he would. He would grit his teeth and go about his business, because he thought that the one who made his blood boil at least cared if he lived or died.

Now?

Now, Uryuu's not sure. _So stupid._ He's not really sure of anything, he realizes, and keeps on walking towards school.


	117. 117: Home

**Title**: Home**  
>AN**: Nothing to say here.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>He came home directly after school, yielding to no distractions, eyes focused straight ahead. If it had been raining, storming, hailing, Uryuu would not have noticed. If there had been an earthquake, he would not have noticed. If the world were coming to an end, he would not have noticed. All he was focused on was the urgency of getting home quickly. There's no homework due tomorrow, which is good, and it's Friday so the weekend looms ahead, even better. Uryuu doesn't think things would go quite so smoothly (<em>not<em>_ that __he __thinks __things will go smoothly __to __begin __with_) if he had to go to school tomorrow.

_I__ can't __believe __I'm __doing __this, _he thinks nervously, barely resisting the compulsion to wring his hands. _I __really __can't. _These are the thoughts that cross Uryuu's mind as he unlocks the front door, and, barely daring to breathe, goes into his room, reaching under his bed to pull out a small suitcase Uryuu doesn't think he's ever used. _I __just__… __I__ just __can't __believe __I'm __going __this __far._

The thought first occurred to him when he sat down for his earliest class of the day in school. Uryuu looked around his classroom, listening. He spotted the boy whom he had run into on the sidewalk, but didn't look at him so long that the boy would notice he was being watched; Uryuu did not want to be noticed, didn't want anyone's pity, especially not a stranger's. He listened to friends telling each other their plans for when the summer vacation came, even as far off as it was, and he began to wonder. _What __if __I __just __went __away?_

Uryuu will admit that he was a bit distracted for the rest of the day. Not so distracted that anyone noticed or he was unable to take down notes, but still distracted, lost in his own thoughts. The day passed by in a vague, hazy blur, the voices of others all running together.

Now, he is staring at his suitcase, and Uryuu frowns, eyes narrowing.

_My__ decision __was __to__ just __leave, __leave __and __never __come __back. To disappear. __The __coward's __way __out, __I __suppose, __running __away __from __my__ problems__ instead __of __dealing __with __them, __but __if __that's __the __case, __I'm __just __going__ to __have __to __live__ with __being __a __coward. __I__ can't __do__ this __anymore. __I'm __sorry, __I'm __really, __very __sorry, __but __I__ just __can't_.

In all honesty, even in the darkest places he's found himself, Uryuu never thought he would go so far as this, and he can't deny he's just a little frightened (or maybe overwhelmingly so), for a moment giving himself over to doubt. _The__ only __times __I've __ever __been __away __from __home __overnight __that __I __can __remember __have __been __to __go __to __the__ hospital __or __to __stay __with __Grandfather __when __I __was __little __if _he _didn't __come __home __from __work. __This __is __something __else __entirely. __Can __I __even__…_

In the books Uryuu has read—children's books, fiction; not the unwieldy medical texts in Ryuuken's office—running away from home is presented as a wonderful adventure. Children run away for whatever reason, be it to escape cruel caretakers, to go on some sort of quest, because they're afraid of getting in trouble after doing something like breaking a valuable antique, or just because they can. They never seem to have to worry about where their next meal will come from, inevitably coming on kind souls willing to give young runaways room and board without calling the police. Just drawing on common sense, Uryuu is pretty sure it won't be that easy—the kindness of strangers is not such a sure thing and unlike in the books, where _Uryuu_ lives, it does rain. Uryuu can not know just how difficult it will be, but he does have some vague idea. In real life, runaways do not have nearly so easy a time of it. In real life, runaways often end up in the destitute slums, in the dingy jails, in the cold morgue.

(_Uryuu __does __his __best __to __ignore __the __inevitable __end __of __most __of__ these __books. __In __most __of __the __books __he's __thinking __of, __the__ young __runaway __is __returned __to __their __parents, __grandparents, __aunt, __uncle, __foster __parents, __whatever, __for __better __or __worse. __He__ tries __not __to __think __about__ that._)

_There's __nothing __for __it, __then.__ Come __on;__ best __get __to __work. _Uryuu's mind is flooded with thought as he starts the process of packing what he'll need into a suitcase.

First thing is a couple of changes of clothes, folded tightly so as to leave as much extra room as possible. _I__ can't __take __too __much; __I'll __just __have __to __be __careful __not __to __get __anything __on __my __clothes __until __I__ have __the __means __to __buy __some __more._

(No matter where Uryuu ends up, money is going to be a huge concern. He has some money from odd jobs, has been putting it away; he doesn't spend much, except to occasionally buy more sewing supplies. It's going to be extraordinarily difficult, given that a lot of the stores won't employ a child as young as Uryuu even for odd jobs, but there's always work to be found if you know where to look and you're willing to step away from the shiny main streets.)

A box of crackers is put next to the clothes and two bottles of water are tucked inside Uryuu's school bag, along with all of his textbooks, every bit of money Uryuu has in his possession and his sewing kit (He drops some of his works in the suitcase but leaves others behind, leaving at least one sitting out on the bed). He'll have to leave his other books behind; it'll just make the suitcase heavy and there's always the library. An unopened pack of paper and a few spare pencils are tossed haphazardly into the suitcase. From the bathroom, comb, deodorant, toothbrush, toothpaste, the bandages, cotton swabs, and antiseptic, since Uryuu doubts Ryuuken will actually have a use for the latter three items.

_I__ wonder __if __he'll __call __the __police __when __he __notices __I'm __gone. __I__ wonder __if __he'll _notice _I'm __gone. __He __works __such __late __hours __that __it'd __probably __take __him __days __just __to __notice __the __difference._

After a moment's hesitation, Uryuu takes the old sock monkey, now coated with a fine layer of dust from having gone untouched for years, from its place on the windowsill, and after a few seconds spent running his fingers over the coarse gray fabric, lays it down on top of the shirts in the suitcase. _I__ don't __suppose __it __would __hurt __to __take __this __with __me. _Soon, his eyes turn to another place in his room where something important lies hidden.

Years ago, so long ago that it may as well have been before the creation of the world, Uryuu's grandfather gave him a box, a box containing something that Uryuu knew instinctively he needed to keep hidden. He didn't hide it the same place he hid the cross pendant, underneath the mattress, since it wouldn't fit. Instead, Uryuu hid the box between his bookcase and the wall, in a place where he knew no one would ever find it, or even think to look if searching for it. Now, he slides the thin box out from behind the bookcase, and stares heavily at it.

_What did Grandfather say was in this? Oh, I remember now. It was something called the Sanrei glove. Difficult to use, bestowing great power if removed but at the cost of all of my abilities as a Quincy._

Uryuu doubts he'll ever use the glove. _When will I ever use it?_ Even so, he doesn't want Ryuuken to find it, he doesn't want to leave it behind, and Uryuu puts the box in his suitcase. This is an heirloom, a keepsake, a gift long held on to. He knows what Ryuuken would do if he ever found it; Uryuu does not want to see one of the few things he has of his grandfather destroyed.

Everything ready to go, Uryuu sits on the edge of his bed, wringing his hands in silence.

_I wonder…_

_Will__ he __come __looking __for __me? __Do __I __want __him __to?__ Right __now, __I __don't __really __want __to __see __him __again. __If __anything, __I _really _don't __want __to __see __him__ again. __But __will __he __miss __me?__ Will __he __try __to __find__ me?_

Uryuu isn't willing to admit if he wants that or not; if he tries he suspects that all of his carefully gathered resolve will wither and crumble away like age-old newspaper exposed to the sun. He stands up and slings the bag over his shoulder, plucks up his suitcase in one hand, and starts to walk (_Uryuu __never __realizes __that __he's __left __his __house __key __in __his __pocket __the __whole __time_).

There is only one truth that keeps him from staying out of weakness: This house has none of the qualities of a home, and there's no reason for Uryuu to stay.


	118. 118: Rocks

**Title**: Rocks**  
>AN**: Ryuuken's thoughts seem a bit disjointed, and that's on purpose; though he seems to be calm on the surface, he's not really comprehending the magnitude of this situation yet.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>To say that Ryuuken spends the whole day brooding would frankly be a gross exaggeration; a more accurate observation would be that he only broods while on break.<p>

At all other times, Ryuuken gives no impression of there being any sort of problem. There's no time to dwell on such things while working. With unruffled calm, he does paperwork, makes the rounds, listens to the assessments of the nurses before going in to confirm or deny their theories himself, running into an anxious-looking Junko more than once in the process. It's just another day at the hospital; nothing major lined up, but it's always advisable to expect the unexpected.

On breaks, Ryuuken goes outside and breaks out cigarette and lighter away from the disapproving eyes of his colleagues. It's a means to an end, it helps calm him down, and really, he's not at the heavy part of the cycle right now—two cigarettes a day, at most.

Before long, lazy trails of pale blue smoke allows Ryuuken to think and attempt to unravel the ever-growing Gordian knot that is his relationship with his son. (_Good __luck __with __ever __managing__ that.)_

_Once __again, __I've __let __my __words __escape __before __properly __thinking__ them __through. __I __may__ as __well __be __turning __into __a __teenager. _Having already gone through adolescence once, Ryuuken can't help but find the thought of reliving that… _charming _experience to be highly unappealing. _The __last __thing __we __need __is __for __me __to __start __acting __like __a __teenager __again. __One __in __the __house, __indulging __in __the __most __reckless __of __adolescent__ rebellion, __is __more __than __bad __enough. Add another and there would probably be a house fire.  
><em>

The morning would have been just another routine morning, all the way down to how they argued—those past arguments all run together, and Ryuuken sometimes finds it difficult not to confuse features of one with another. _They all sound the same anyways. Uryuu wears the same face, and it always ends in the same way, with him retreating to his room. It's not difficult to mistake one quarrel for another._ It would have been just another morning, just another argument, nothing out of the ordinary, if not for Ryuuken's slip and that look on Uryuu's face afterwards.

Uryuu has, much to Ryuuken's surprise, been getting better about hiding his emotions. Ryuuken can still accurately assess his emotions with little effort, but it's no longer simply the exertion of a glance. Nowadays, it usually takes more than just looking at Uryuu to tell what he's thinking.

Not so that morning, however. What shoddy masks Uryuu had constructed vanished from his skin and his face was left naked, open, all emotion there illuminated by the light of day and so painfully easy to read. First shock, profound, spilled all over his skin, his eyes, his lips. Uryuu appeared as a gaping fish to Ryuuken's eyes.

Then, something changed in his expression and Ryuuken watched shock give way to pain, wondering for a moment, from the too-wide eyes, brows drawn up and together, face paling beyond the usual and skin growing strained and taut, if Uryuu was going to cry. He never made a sound, but his eyes had the over-bright, glossy quality of one on the verge of tears; all that was missing was red patches at the top of his cheeks.

_Those __who __display __pain __so __openly __make __themselves__ vulnerable __to __the __manipulations __of __others. _Ryuuken has to bite his tongue to keep from putting those words to the air. He's fairly certain Uryuu wouldn't hear him, and Ryuuken's also pretty sure he's said that to Uryuu before; no point in being redundant. At any rate, Uryuu displays his pain too freely, as always. _And __here __you __are, __open __to __manipulation __by __any __schemer __or __swindler __you__ come __upon, __either __promising __to __make __it __all __better __or __twisting __your__ arm__ behind __your __head__ so __hard__ that it __breaks._

Uryuu did not break down crying the way Ryuuken expected him to. When he finally regained the use of his tongue and the faculties of speech, the boy stammered something and left, barely managing to keep his pace limited to a walk.

"_I'm __leaving." _Those are the words that Ryuuken remember most clearly. Uryuu's way of announcing that he wasn't going along with this spat of theirs anymore. Fair enough, but there was an odd sort of finality to it. Like…

_You're__ imagining __it. _Ryuuken shakes his head and draws a deep drag off of his cigarette. _Stop__ trying __to __create__ something __out __of __nothing. Weaving situations out of the air do not make them reality.  
><em>

Ryuuken contemplates remorse and changes as the muggy air grows more and more oppressive. Things will certainly be different between them from now on, and not for the better, especially given Uryuu's tendency to take things to heart. _I'll__ never __hear__ the __end __of __this, __not __for __as __long __as __I __live._

That this line of thought makes him uncomfortable in a squirming sort of way Ryuuken tries not to acknowledge, does not want to acknowledge. He puts out his cigarette, tucks the pack and his lighter back in his pocket, and gets back to work.

-0-0-0-

Ryuuken gets home from work with the sinking sun at his back, the light gleaming off of the puddles golden rather than red as it has been for the past few days. The clouds that had been threatening rain all day have vanished as the sun started going down, and maybe it won't rain at all today after all.

The front door's unlocked.

That's what Ryuuken notices first, and he frowns as he pushes the door open. No matter what state of mind Uryuu is in, fatigued, hurried or content, when he comes home, he always remembers to lock the door behind him. _He __might __have __gone __out __again, _Ryuuken allows moodily. _He __might __have __picked __up on __a __Hollow __and __in __his __hurry __forgot __to __lock __the __door __as __he __left. __That's __probably __it. __He's __going__ to __get __us __robbed__ if __he plans __to__ make __a__ habit __of __forgetting __to __lock __the __door when he leaves._

Nothing seems out of place on a cursory glance, so Ryuuken assumes that he is the only one who noticed the unlocked door and goes about his business. Well, he does, until he passes by the bathroom and notices one of the toothbrushes missing.

"_I'm __leaving." _The memory of those words sparks a thought in Ryuuken and a pounding headache to go with it. _Oh,__ tell __me __he __didn't__… _Ryuuken goes in to Uryuu's room to find a few key things missing, such as his schoolbooks, a few changes of clothes, his sewing kit, and so on. The bathroom reveals that more still is gone.

"He left his medication behind, but he took the sock monkey," Ryuuken mutters to himself blankly. _How__ ridiculous.__ How __utterly __ridiculous_. At first, that is the only thought his mind can form—everything else is blank, useless, unable to comprehend the situation that is inevitably unfolding before him. Instead, his mind focuses on something petty (or maybe not so petty, considering what Uryuu's state of health will fall too long enough without the iron supplements) until it's able to comprehend exactly what's going on.

"Stupid boy."

Rubbing his forehead, Ryuuken eventually finds himself sitting, of all places, on the edge of Uryuu's bed, trying to untangle the convoluted jumble of his thoughts. _If__ I __can __just __find __the __right __thread __to __pull__…_

The rocks on the windowsill have been moved slightly and there are clothes missing from the closet and…

_Fool__. Utter,_ incomprehensible _fool.__ What __does __he __think __this __will __solve?__ Where __is __he?_

Ryuuken hasn't been inside Uryuu's room in… Well, he's not sure how long it's been since he was last in Uryuu's bedroom. He's stood in the doorway, surveyed the room from there, but being inside of Uryuu's room is not an experience he's used to. The only people who ever venture inside of this room are the woman who comes every other Saturday to clean, and Uryuu himself. Ryuuken doesn't know why, but it just feels like a place where he shouldn't go.

The room is extremely neat and tidy, characteristic of Uryuu, who can't stand seeing things not put away in their proper place. The idea of untidiness seems to offend him, though in honesty Ryuuken's knows he's in no position to judge—the only reason there would ever be anything resembling clutter on his floor would be if Ryuuken was tearing his room apart looking for something.

Come to mention it, Uryuu's room is so neat that it barely looks lived in at all; a stranger would probably find it more believable that this was a room set aside for guests and that the one who lived there moved out years ago. The only thing that could even identify it as a child's room is that some of the books in the bookcase aren't what an adult would generally be reading—Uryuu has a noticeable liking of fantasy. _Fitting,__ all __told. _Otherwise, the room is sparsely furnished, austere; it does not look like a place that is lived in.

Ryuuken is sitting on the bed for a few moments before he notices the bit of cross-stitch sitting beside him—the white cloth blended in well with the equally white bedding. Reaching for it on impulse, Ryuuken fingers the coarse, tightly knitted cloth in his hands.

It looks like one of Uryuu's earlier works, judging by how sloppy the stitches were. There are a few droplets of blood staining the snowy cloth as well, a sparse splattering or maybe a torrent—Ryuuken can't tell. The blood looks like rust and the thread is pale, powder blue, the color of the sky on a clear winter day.

_I still wish to this day that this had been a good enough hobby for him._

Uryuu's taken the bandages and the antiseptic on top of everything else. At least he shows that much common sense, though Ryuuken can guess that if he isn't lucky during a fight with a Hollow all that antiseptic and all that gauze won't be with him for long.

_So he's taken a page out of the accounts of so many unrealistic children's books and has run away from home. If I ever needed confirmation that Uryuu, in spite of his actions, is still a child, this is it._

At the same time that his scathing thoughts erupt, Ryuuken's emotions start to run in another, entirely unwelcome direction. _And __what__ should __I__ do__ about __this?_

_Go __to __the __police? _Somehow, Ryuuken can just imagine Uryuu as a 'missing person', and the thought of it is darkly hilarious. What's not so hilarious is the way Uryuu's recalcitrance, his stubborn sullenness, would surely skyrocket if Ryuuken had the police drag him back home. Personally, Ryuuken normally does not care if Uryuu despises everything about him, but in this case, them living together would become all but impossible after a situation like that.

_Look__ for __him __myself, __without __bringing __the __police __into __it __and __not__ dragging __private __matters __out __into __the __light __of __day, __and__ bring __him __back __here __even __if __I __have__ to __drag __him__ by __his __ankles? _It would be so easy; all Ryuuken would have to do is stretch out his awareness and he would be able to pick up on Uryuu's general location within minutes, so long as he isn't more than a few miles away. And again, Uryuu's resentment of him would be utterly complete if he were to go to those lengths, Ryuuken is sure. And what would be to stop him from just running off again, and again?

_Or do I just wait for him to come back, even if he never comes at all?_

Ryuuken gives it three days, a week at most, before Uryuu comes back. _I__ hope __it __doesn't __rain __between __now __and __then._ This is an incredibly ill-advised venture, even for Uryuu, and Ryuuken has little doubt that it won't last forever.

_He went this far. He went this far… I suppose I should have expected it, but still._

_Who does he think he's kidding? He's a thirteen year old boy; how long does he think he's going to last all on his own? Does he honestly think this will be a permanent change? Does he?_

_Did it really hurt that much?_

The cross-stitched cloth is clenched in his hands, and Ryuuken sighs heavily. _"I'm __leaving." _Wherever Uryuu has gone, and however sure Ryuuken is that he'll be back, Ryuuken supposes he's going to have to figure out where he is, even if he has to track Uryuu down to his school. Uryuu needs his medication, if nothing else.


	119. 119: Apartment

**Title**: Apartment**  
>AN**: I hope this doesn't come across as _too_ unrealistic.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>Uryuu feels more than a little nervous about his new surroundings—more the novelty of the situation than any suspicion that he won't be safe here, though given what part of town he's in, that plays a role as well. <em>This <em>_is __probably __going __to __blow__ up __in __my__ face __eventually,_ Uryuu reflects moodily, _but __I__'__ll __try __my __best __to __make __it __work __until __it __does. __At __any __rate, __something __tells __me __that __any __would-be __burglar __will __think __twice __after __having __arrows __fired __on __them._

The first couple of nights were spent sleeping in a nearby shrine. The local priest, an elderly man with a cane and thick, round glasses (with a pang, Uryuu was reminded of his grandfather), grudgingly allowed him to stay, on the condition that Uryuu understood that this was _not_ a permanent arrangement and that Uryuu was to move his things out of the shrine during the day. The priest either had bad enough eyesight that he had taken Uryuu to be a few years older than he actually was (a mistake committed by a stranger not for the first time), or he just didn't care that he was temporarily housing a runaway.

Having never been inside of a shrine before, Uryuu soaked in his surroundings with interest. He had not really been raised with religion. Ryuuken said there was no point to it since the existence of Shinigami and Hollows didn't match up with any religion he'd ever been exposed to; Soken would occasionally mutter a prayer or two but he never told Uryuu what they meant and that seemed to be the extent of his religious devotion.

The shrine is plain but ornate all the same, and there is a small but steady stream of people day after day. Uryuu spends two nights sleeping in a corner of the shrine, careful not to move too much while sleeping so the chain won't become taut against his throat (he's been wearing his cross pendant around his neck lately so he won't lose it), but after that decides he's going to have to find somewhere more permanent to stay. If this keeps up his teachers will notice that he hasn't been able to get to a shower, and Uryuu would really rather they didn't find out about this whole misadventure of his, given the way they'd react.

The one possibility that might have crossed Uryuu's mind from the start is dismissed out of hand. Uryuu does not want to take up residence in his grandfather's old house, for two reasons.

Firstly, he doesn't think he could quite handle being that immersed in his past. _I__'__d__ probably __end__ up __hanging __myself __from__ one __of __the __light __fixtures_, he decides, in a moment of particularly black humor. He doesn't think he could live there, doesn't think he could swallow down the reminders every morning. Living there would never be capable of giving Uryuu anything but pain.

Following that, the second reason is that, simply, Uryuu's not sure that that would be legal. There could be someone living there (unlikely), but even so he gets the feeling that squatting in an abandoned house would probably end with him being arrested and sent back to Ryuuken. Likely there wouldn't be any electricity or water, and would probably get very cold in the winter without heat.

So Uryuu got a hold on the nearest newspaper he could find and started looking through the ads, frowning more and more deeply as he did so. _Come __on; __there__'__s __got __to __be __an __apartment __whose __rent __isn__'__t __completely__ exorbitant, __I __know__ there __has __to __be._

Eventually, he came upon an opening, and more importantly one that didn't charge an unfeasible rate of rent. _That__'__ll__ do__ nicely, _Uryuu thought to himself, _if__ I__ can __actually __get __the__ apartment. _Uryuu wasn't sure what about it tipped him off, but something about the ad had a feeling of urgency to it—that would probably help his case.

To his amazement and not a small amount of unease that ended up being suppressed due to Uryuu's need for a place to live, his suspicion proved correct. He didn't know why his new landlady was so desperate for another tenant that she was willing to accept one that clearly not eighteen, nor did Uryuu particularly want to know—he would probably sleep better if in ignorance. On the outside there didn't seem anything overtly illegal about the apartment complex she oversaw; it didn't even look all that dirty, though it was a touch untidy.

Oh well. As Uryuu has told himself over and over again, if someone tries to rob him or drag him into a dark alley for murder or other things, he can always "pretend to miss" with a few arrows and send them running. They wouldn't tell the police, both because they were burglars and even if they weren't, no one would believe them. They certainly wouldn't ever come back.

And now, Uryuu has an apartment, the landlady glad to rush through the paperwork, give him a key and point him in the right direction. He finds himself sitting on a futon couch, staring at his surroundings.

His new home is small and a bit cramped, but since it's just him, it's alright, and Uryuu doesn't see the need for a great deal of space. Something much bigger would probably just spark a sense of loneliness in him (_not__ to __mention __a __horrible __familiarity_). What's already there in the way of furnishings are the futon Uryuu sits on, a twin bed much like what he had before, a refrigerator, an oven with stovetop, and a microwave. _Not__ bad,__ all __told_, he muses absently, for a moment contemplating starting to unpack his things.

The apartment complex itself looks like it was once a hotel, with plaster walls and two stories. Though from what Uryuu understands, only a little over half of the apartments are currently occupied (that may be why the landlady was so willing to accommodate him, he realizes), there is a constant thundering of footsteps upstairs that leaves Uryuu wondering if he's going to get any sleep at all, sleeping on a bare mattress until he can find some proper sheets.

_This__… __This __is __home __now, __I __guess? _Uryuu's lips are very dry, and he clasps his hands close together. For a moment more he's able to keep his mind off of the inevitable thoughts, but his resolve soon gives way to reality.

_I am so stupid. It doesn't mater if the rent's low; how am I going to pay for it every month? I can only get so much money from taking odd jobs, even if I do a lot of them. How am I going to pay for the water and the electricity? How am I going to pay for groceries? How will I ever manage all that?  
><em>

A car zooms by the window and Uryuu sighs as he starts to move towards the bathroom and, more importantly, the shower; he may not have been able to find proper sheets, but the same can't be said for a towel. _I__'__ll__ just __have __to__ make __it __work __somehow. __Anything__'__s __better __than __going __back. _With a hideous screech, the water is turned on in the shower._ I__'__ve __gotten __too __far __to __just __go __back. __I__ can__'__t. __Not __anymore._

He'll just have to make it work.


	120. 120: Mail

**Title**: Mail**  
>AN**: Okay, I know there was a letter in the book in earlier works, but no. Just no. The more I think about it the more I realize that it's incredibly clichéd, and _Entropy_ isn't really the kind of work where something like that fits, anyway.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>"I… I have mail?" Uryuu stares blankly at his landlady, who is wearing a tired expression and holding a thick, rather lumpy manila package in her hands.<p>

"That's right." The landlady hands the package over to him, running a hand through her short, graying dark hair. "Came this morning, while you were at school." Without further ceremony, the landlady turns on her heel and starts back towards the safety of her office. The skies have been threatening rain all day, have recently grown nearly black, and she plainly doesn't want to get caught in a downpour.

"Thank you, Yamashita-san," Uryuu calls after her, before shutting his door and locking it behind him. Really, she's not nearly so unpleasant as Uryuu had feared she would be from the hurried way she pushed his paperwork through, just a thin little woman in a sweater and a long skirt. However, seeing his landlady only reminds him that his rent (among other things) is due in a week and a half, and that he's still a bit short, so he doesn't smile.

Thunder rolls as Uryuu sits down on the futon and holds the package on his lap. He's made a few additions to his surroundings, though only the most necessary. Uryuu found at a yard sale a card table, two folding chairs, and bed sheets and a pillow, sold at a grand total of 25 yen; the former three serve as a kitchen table and chairs. Getting it all back to his apartment was a little tricky, but Uryuu managed it. At least he has somewhere proper to sit down when he eats.

_Who__ would __be __sending__ me __mail? _the boy wonders. Uryuu holds the package up and something inside rattles; this brings a frown to his face. _How__ does __anyone __even _know _where __I __live?__ It__'__s __not __like __I __told __anyone __that __I __was __moving __out __and __striking __out __on __my __own; __who __was __there __to __tell?_

Supposing he can get answers from the packaging itself, Uryuu turns the package face-up to see if there's a return address. There's not a return address, but Uryuu's eyes are drawn immediately afterwards to the address itself. He comes within a hairsbreadth of swallowing his tongue when he realizes that he recognizes the neat, compact, stiffly correct handwriting of the sender, and finds himself resisting the urge to swear a moment later.

_How__ did _he _find __out __where __I __am?_

Ryuuken seems to have (somehow) discovered where Uryuu is now living. Suddenly, his blood feels like ice in his veins and his hands clench the manila packaging until the paper starts to tear. _If__ he__'__s __figured __out __where __I__'__m __living, __why __hasn__'__t __he __come __here __yet?_ Uryuu can not deny the wave of relief that comes from knowing that Ryuuken hasn't deigned to come confront him over this whole matter in person, but at the same time, Uryuu feels… He feels…

He's not sure what he feels at first, but eventually Uryuu realizes that he's torn between anger and disappointment, that Ryuuken hasn't bothered to try to see him in person, and he swallows down bile and suppresses the feeling.

_Now __what __to __do __about __this? _Uryuu seriously considers not opening the thick manila envelope Ryuuken's sent him. Anything connected to him he seriously considers tossing in the trash can and not thinking of again. Eventually, though, curiosity and the need to be polite overcomes Uryuu's other instincts, and he tears open the envelope.

A book, a photograph, a bottle of pills and two slips of paper come sliding out of the envelope; Uryuu manages to catch the papers, the book and the pill bottle, but the photo ends up face down on the floor. Uryuu ignores it for the moment, and picks up one of the slips of paper instead, brow furrowing as lines of Ryuuken's unnaturally even script appear before his eyes.

_I__ have __refilled __your __prescription __and__ enclosed __the __slip __for __when __it __needs __to __be __refilled __again. __Given __that __every __pharmacy __in __a __five-mile __radius __would __recognize __you __by __sight, __and __failing __that __by __name, __I__ don__'__t __think __you__'__ll __have __a __problem __with __any __pharmacist. __Do __not __forget __to __take __your __medication_.

Uryuu scoffs and puts the paper aside. _Figures __that __would __be __all__ he__'__d __talk __about. _He ignores the fact that there was more on that paper and examines the other piece of paper. True to his word, Ryuuken has enclosed the prescription slip so Uryuu can refill his prescription when it runs out. _What__'__s __going __to __happen __if __I __stop __taking __an __iron __supplement __anyway? _Uryuu's mind is immediately flooded with unpleasant images, and he wishes he hadn't asked.

There's still the photograph that fluttered to the floor; Uryuu peers at it and sees a date written on the back, _July__ 18,__ 1983_. Putting aside the book on his lap, Uryuu reaches forward and plucks it up off the ground. When he sees the image, his heart jumps up into his throat.

The photograph looks a lot smaller when it isn't sitting in a dark wood frame, but other than that, all the same. A pale, delicate-featured woman, with blue-black hair not far past her chin and deep blue eyes. Uryuu stares long and hard at his mother's photograph, and all he can think is _Why?, _truly perplexed. Ryuuken did love her, as much as he's capable of loving anyone—even if Uryuu isn't sure of anything else about him, he's sure of that. Why would he give away the only photograph of her that Uryuu's ever seen in the house?

Maybe the remainder of the letter has some sort of answer. Uryuu holds up the paper again and resumes reading.

_The book was your mother's. She once read it to you when you were young, and wanted you to have it when you were old enough._

Nothing on the photograph, but the note about the book piques Uryuu's curiosity. Examining it for the first time, he looks it over with interest.

It's a dog-eared book, with slightly yellowed pages and whose cover has a white background. The hazy outline of a woman's face appears in the inset, a city all lit up in the dark of night. _The __Great __Gatsby, _by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Uryuu's heard of the book, though he's never read it. An American book set about eighty years ago (he thinks), "a tragedy of greed", or at least that's how the local librarian described it. Personally, Uryuu tends to take overly emotional descriptions like the one she gave with a grain of salt; otherwise the book itself will probably be a horrible let-down.

_If __she __wanted __me __to __have __it__… _A thought sparks like the prelude to fire in Uryuu's mind, and he starts flipping through the book. He looks for loose slips of paper, notes written in the margins, anything that might have been a sign of the owner of the book herself.

Nothing. Uryuu's shoulders slump in disappointment. _Not a word._ Nothing, not even a signature on the very first page to indicate ownership of the book or where it would need to be returned to if lost. _I __should __have __known __better. _Uryuu shakes his head wearily and goes to throw the packaging away.

Leaving letters in books for the next reader to find is the sort of clichéd plot twist Uryuu will only find in mystery novels or shoujo manga anyway. It doesn't happen in real life.

(He's a little glad he got the photo though, all the same.)


	121. 121: Name

**Title**: Name**  
>AN**: Nothing much to say here. Please enjoy.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>Figuring out where Uryuu was living hadn't been too hard. Alright, maybe it had been, and Ryuuken had had to stretch out the awareness he wished above all else he didn't have to figure out the boy's general location. From there, a little more digging was required, and <em>that,<em>perhaps, was the easy part of all this.

_So __he__'__s __gone __so __far __as __to __rent __out __an __apartment? _Ryuuken grimaces when he realizes where Uryuu has taken up residence. _It__ can__'__t __be __a __very __good __one, if the landlord's willing to rent to a thirteen-year-old and __if __he__'__s __able __to __afford __rent. __How _is _he __paying __the__ rent __in __the __first __place, __anyway?_

Ryuuken took advantage of having Uryuu's new address to send his medication to him over the mail. Whether Uryuu takes it or not is up to him, but Ryuuken suspects that if Uryuu doesn't take his medicine or if it gets lost in the mail, he'll see him again soon enough. _On __a __hospital __bed __hooked __up __to __an __IV, __I __have __no __doubt._

He had sent other things, as well. A book, and a photograph that has left a dark wooden frame on his desk at home lying empty. Ryuuken's reasoning behind giving Uryuu Sayuri's copy of _The __Great __Gatsby_ was quite simple. She had on one occasion made it clear that she wanted Uryuu to have it, and frankly, Ryuuken had never really liked Fitzgerald's works. There was just something about the man's books that dug under Ryuuken's skin. He preferred Japanese literature anyway.

The photograph is a little harder to explain, even now. It had just been an impulsive afterthought, really. Ryuuken had slid the letter, the pills, the prescription slip and the book into the thick manila envelope, and was ready to put the mailing address and the stamp on it, until his eyes were drawn to the photograph. He stared at the photo, at her two-dimensional smile, her two-dimensional (but still so lovely) eyes, and sighed. _Pictures__ speak __a __thousand __words,__ and __if __I __just __had __the __ears __to __hear __them__… _Easily was the photo slid from the frame and carefully tucked into the folder. _Who __knows? __Maybe __Uryuu __will __be __able __to__ hear __what __I __can__'__t. He would be just the type. Ridiculous dreamers are always able to hear such things.  
><em>

So Ryuuken sent that package to his wayward son, and honestly, he didn't expect to get anything in the way of a response.

Except he's gotten one.

One of the receptionists brings the little white envelope to him before scurrying back to that floor's help desk. Frowning, Ryuuken turns it over. Seeing but not really registering the name written on the envelope, he tears it open and draws out the paper inside.

Ryuuken holds a piece of lined notebook paper that has only two words written on it. _Thank__ you._ The script is small and untidy, not sloppy enough to raise eyebrows but still hardly what anyone would call neat, correct handwriting. The certain slant of the characters, leaning leftwards, betrays the identity of the writer as most likely being left-handed.

_He__ never __was __quite __able __to __perfect__ his __handwriting, _Ryuuken thinks with a sigh. _I __wonder __if __any__ of __his __early __teachers __were __left-handed. __Maybe __if __they __had __been, __things __would __have __been __a __little __different._

_I__ have __to __admit, __I __never __expected __him__ to __write __back __to __me_.

Just as he's having those thoughts, something else occurs to him. "Wait…" Ryuuken turns the envelope over and his eyes narrow. The envelope (likely hand-delivered to the hospital, since there's nothing in the way of stamps or a proper address on the envelope) has a single line of text on it. His name, written out plainly, _'__Ishida__ Ryuuken.__'_

_What's this?_

(_Uryuu__'__s __pencil__ hesitates, hovering __over __the __envelope __once __he__'__s __folded __the __paper __into __quarters __and __slid __it __inside, __sealing __the __envelope __flap __behind__ it._

_How to address it?_

What do I write? _Uryuu __wonders __to __himself, __the __pencil __starting __to __make __a__ little __black __mark __on __the__ pristine__ white __envelope __paper. __He __almost __writes __out __the __word__ '__Father__' __out__ of __sheer __instinct, __before __stopping __himself. _What do I write?

_After __a __few__ moments __of__ agonizing __over __addresses, __Uryuu __ends __up __writing __out __Ryuuken__'__s __full __name, __instead __of__ '__Father__'__. __Writing__ '__Father__' __on__ the __envelope __isn__'__t __going__ to __get __whoever __he__ gives __the __letter __to __anywhere __if __they __don__'__t __recognize __him __as __the __director__'__s __son, __and __even __if __he__ was __a __little __more __sure, __Uryuu __still __wouldn__'__t_.

This is so rude, _he __thinks __with __just __the __slightest __hint __of __despair_. _He __still __goes __through __with __it, __though. __Uryuu __doesn__'__t __think __he__'__s __ever __going __to __be __able __to __call __Ryuuken__ '__Father__' __again._)

Ryuuken's mouth rearranges itself into a dark frown. _Well__ of __all __the__…_

"Since when does he call me by my first name?"


	122. 122: Rent

**Title**: Rent**  
>AN**: With Uryuu's decision not to call Ryuuken 'Father' anymore last chapter, he was trying to accomplish two things. On a metaphorical level, Uryuu was denying Ryuuken the right to call himself his father. It was him saying _"__You __don__'__t __act __like __a __father __so __as __far __as __I__'__m__ concerned __you __don__'__t __get __to __call __yourself __one __anymore.__"_ On the same token, Uryuu was giving up his status as Ryuuken's son, as well as whatever privilege and security that might have afforded him. However, in this chapter Ryuuken pretty much proves that ties between them will never be able to be fully cut.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p><em>Now <em>_what__'__s __this? _Uryuu looks over his bills and frowns. Specifically, he frowns at the one titled '_rent_', and what it says. _Already__ paid? __By__ whom? _He reads further down, and as he does, Uryuu's brow furrows and his face contorts in a somewhat grotesque expression of confusion. _Why __is _he _paying __my __rent?_

Uryuu has been presented with his fair share of confusing experiences over his life. There are puzzles, quandaries, riddles that he has never been able to solve, or even get the first layer of dust off of. This frustrates him, as does anything that defies his ability to solve and makes his intelligence look meager by comparison—Uryuu doesn't particularly like the idea of someone taking a needle to his pride. Thus, whenever he's presented with a mystery, he stubbornly clings to its skin until he has it solved.

He doesn't know why Ryuuken has suddenly started paying his rent, but Uryuu is highly interested in finding out.

_Why__ would __he __do__ that? _Uryuu starts to look at his other bills and he grimaces. He has been conserving energy as much as possible—short showers, having the lights on only when absolutely necessary and keeping the air conditioner on to a bare minimum—to cut down on what he would have to pay at the end of the month. The truth is, however, that Uryuu still needs to bathe, he has to have the lights on sometime and even if Uryuu is distinctly enamored of the idea of not having to live in a constant chilly 69° F, if he turns the air conditioning off altogether, at this time of year, it would inspire a level of heat that even Uryuu wouldn't be able to stand.

_This __isn__'__t __so __bad, __though. _The pencil raps endlessly against the makeshift kitchen table. _I__ should __be __able __to __pay, __though.__ I__'__ll __have __to __forget __about __being __able __to __eat __breakfast __for __a __while, though, _Uryuu allows ruefully, eyes flickering momentarily to the ceiling. His refrigerator is pitifully bare even on the best of days; the Chinese takeout place not too far away has been paid frequent visits. _I__'__ll__ definitely __be __able __to __break __even __now __that __I __don__'__t __have __to __pay __rent._

This train of thought leads him back to the riddle. _But__ why? _Uryuu wonders in frustration._ It__'__s __not __like __I__'__m __not __relieved; __paying __the __rent __every __month __would __have __been __a __nightmare, __but __why?__ He __hoards __money __like __squirrels __do __acorns __in __the __fall. __Why __would __he __do __something __like __this, __especially __now?_

Pondering Ryuuken's sudden (not to mention uncharacteristic) act of generosity, Uryuu puts aside the bills for now and stares off into space, eyes glazing over. _He__'__s __never __been __generous, __or __particularly __altruistic. __I__'__ve __never __seen __him__ stick __his __neck __out __for __someone __else, not __unless __there__'__s__ something __in __it __for __him. _That's true, as far as Uryuu knows; there are times when he thinks, only half-sarcastically, that maybe the real reason Ryuuken always made sure Uryuu was properly taken care of when he was sick was because he wouldn't have been able to explain to the police how Uryuu has gone from having a cold to being dead.

_That__'__s __it. _As Uryuu comes to a conclusion, he feels his throat tighten just a little bit, though he can't honestly say he's terribly surprised. _He__ must __really __not __want __me __back, __then. _There are other reasons possible, a multitude of others, but Uryuu can only see the one that has appeared before him. _That __has __to __be __it._

(_Perhaps__ with __a __more __open __mind __he __could __see __the __consequences __of __myopia __in __critical __thinking,__ but __where __Ryuuken __is __concerned, __Uryuu __can__ not __honestly __say __that __he __has __an __open __mind.)_

Uryuu returns to the task of calculating just how much he's going to have to pay this month with a small sigh. If Ryuuken wants him to stay away that badly, then Uryuu's hardly about to disappoint the man.


	123. 123: Pictures

**Title**: Pictures**  
>AN**: Again, adapted from a oneshot, specifically _Lost__ and __Found. _Adapted, altered, expanded, pretty much overhauled. Also, do any of you remember the moment when you realized that your grandparent's house was just a house? That's always such an awful moment.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>As Uryuu stands in the doorway to the old, ramshackle house, he sighs, and wonders if he should go inside after all. Having spoken with the dead personally, he can't help but be a believer in showing respect for the dead. What he had decided to do today is about as far from respecting the dead as humanly possible, and he can't help but think that maybe it isn't necessary.<p>

Uryuu wouldn't be here if he didn't need cooking utensils. It's getting a little boring just living off of takeout and sandwiches, and eventually he's going to come across something that needs more than paper plates and microwaves. _Not__ only __am __I __disrespecting__ the __dead, __I__'__m __stealing __from __them __too, _he resists the urge to groan out loud, adjusting the empty bag on his shoulder. This bag usually holds Uryuu's schoolbooks, but on this early summer Saturday, it is quite empty, ready to be filled with cooking and eating utensils, silverware, plates, anything Uryuu can carry out with him that he needs. _You __know,__ when __I __was __told __the __apartment __was __furnished__ I __assumed__ it __would __have __silverware__ too_.

The thought of frequenting yard sales has been explored. That's where Uryuu found a number of the items that sit in his apartment now, and if push comes to shove he will just do that, but for now Uryuu wouldn't mind being able to find some of what he needs without having to pay for it. Thus, he's taken a breezy summer Saturday to follow a familiar deserted road to a familiar deserted house, and he stands in the doorway, trying to convince himself that he's not stealing from his grandfather or doing a dishonor to his memory by doing this.

Getting to the stoop had involved swimming through a sea of grass. The grass, always long during the fertile months, has grown well past Uryuu's waist, some of the blades tickling his neck. They sway in the breeze like the ocean's tide, a multitude of soft voices, and smell of summer. Uryuu reflects that he's probably going to engage in a long hunt over skin and clothes for ticks when he gets back to his apartment.

_I __didn__'__t __think __I__'__d __ever__ come __here __again. _Uryuu bites down hard on his lip, almost hard enough to draw blood. His fingertips are poised, splayed out, on the door, but he still can't quite find it in him to push it open. The heat is oppressive, breathing a challenge. _I __never __really __wanted __to __come __back__ here __again.__ There__'__s __nothing __here __for __me __but __memories __I __can__'__t __call __happy __anymore._

Eventually, he shores up enough resolve to put more pressure on the door and open it. It wasn't locked; Soken rarely ever saw the need to lock his doors. _Come __on. __This__'__ll __be __the __last __time. __Just __look __around __for __maybe __fifteen __minutes __and __you__'__ll __never __have __to__ come __back __again. __You__'__ll __never __have __to __be __here__ again._ Uryuu steps inside, and casts his eyes around the small, empty house.

It looks… _different._ Funny how things change, with a few years away and eyes that are no longer clouded by a child's innocence or a child's simple love.

Uryuu had always known his grandfather was poor. It was rather hard not to notice, given the stark contrast provided by the way Uryuu himself had lived as a child. His own austere home had hardly been what anyone would call luxurious, but where Uryuu had lived there had been heating and air conditioning. The lights never flickered, there was a microwave and there was never any problem with mice. He'd known there was a difference between his grandfather's house and his own.

Now, however, Uryuu sees more, and is struck by how little his eyes saw as a child. He sees the threadbare upholstery on the moth-eaten, sagging couch. He sees the pitifully thin walls, the rickety kitchen table whose one short leg stands bolstered with an old phone book. He sees the iron wood-burning stove that had so fascinated him as a child and realizes now what a fire hazard it was. He sees everything.

Looking around at the house, Uryuu gets the distinct feeling of his childhood going up in flames. Everything is coated in a layer of dust that threatens a sneezing fit, and there is a faint but distinct odor of mold, though Uryuu can't quite tell where it's coming from. Light filters in golden slants through the windows and the air is hot and stale.

It's not the same house as Uryuu remembers. This world has grown smaller, mundane, deficient. Uryuu crosses over to the kitchen, looking through cabinets and drawers, one after another.

They're all empty. No matter where Uryuu looks, be it in places that were empty to begin with or places that were not, there is absolutely nothing. No silverware, no pots, no pans, nothing. Uryuu's expression grows grim; clearly someone else had this idea before he did. The only satisfaction Uryuu can take from the situation is that if looters were looking to make a quick buck off of his grandfather's belongings, they wouldn't have found anything of value other than what they had stolen from the kitchen, and even then they wouldn't have made much money. Everything Soken had owned in kitchenware was old as dirt and most of it wasn't in the best condition anyway.

Sick of the house already and every unwanted emotion it evokes in him (_the__ specter __of __long-forgotten __laughter __and __long-forgotten __smiles __looms__ over __him, __threatening __to __overwhelm __at __any __moment_), Uryuu turns around, more than ready to leave. The idea that he was going to be stealing silverware out of his grandfather's house was bad enough; the reality that someone's already beaten him to the punch, with no regard for the sanctity of death or childhood memories, is a thousand times worse. He'll just have to start frequenting yard sales again.

Then, Uryuu remembers Soken's notes.

Soken had kept copious notes, notes that Uryuu presumed had to do with Quincy techniques. Uryuu had never personally seen what his grandfather was writing but had seen him writing it down in the evenings and in moments of exhaustion, and he knows where Soken kept his notes.

There are two places in particular. One is a large, rather flimsy old hatbox that Soken kept under the living room sofa. The second was an old metal strongbox he kept under his bed; Uryuu wasn't sure why his grandfather insisted on using two different places to keep his notes, but had never questioned it.

Much to Uryuu's relief, the hatbox is still under the sofa when he gets on his knees to pull it out. Whoever had decided to come here before him must not have deemed it very valuable, or simply didn't notice it at all (_It__'__s__ far __more __valuable __to __him__ than __it __ever __will __be __to __anyone __else __anyway_). He puts the hatbox in his bag and starts towards his grandfather's bedroom.

It's hardly a long walk, but Uryuu pauses for a moment in front of one of the other two doors, eyes narrowed.

During the summer, when he was still young enough to be taking naps, Uryuu would be put down for naps in what had been Ryuuken's room when he still lived here. The winter was another matter entirely, sleeping on the sofa so he could be closer to the radiator (Come to mention it, the radiator's gone too). Uryuu pushes open the door about halfway and stares inside.

The bed is thin and the sheets shabby, still folded neatly over the mattress. There's dust over the bookcase and the blinds practically an inch thick, and Uryuu notices for the first time the rust on the metal bed frame and the peeling paint. He shuts the door abruptly.

Outside of his grandfather's room, the smell of mold has gotten stronger, and with some misgivings, Uryuu opens the door.

He regrets having done that when the reek of mold, overpowering, immediately hits him, ramming against his nose and the roof of his mouth like a sledgehammer. Uryuu covers his mouth, coughing convulsively and eyes watering.

It had been the summertime when Soken had died, and given how hot it gets in the house during summer, he appears to have left his window open. In the five years since he died, that window has been open the whole time, allowing any amount of rainfall in through that opening. The room has been exposed to rain, wind, heat and humidity. Mold has grown in the soaked areas where the sun doesn't touch, pervasive and reeking.

Uryuu looks at the ruined landscape of his grandfather's room, and his eyes water for a reason unrelated to the formation of mold. He braves the overpowering smell just long enough to get the strongbox out from under the bed and into his bag, and leaves.

-0-0-0-

Sitting under a tree in the park, Uryuu supposes he'll have to add bolt cutters to his yard sale shopping list. The strong box is pad-locked and Uryuu wouldn't go back into his grandfather's mold-infested bedroom to look for the key if his life depended on it. Well, he _hopes_ that was mold he was breathing in; the idea of what else it might have been is not a pleasant one.

The screams of children on the swing set and playing with a soccer ball reach Uryuu's ears. Physically they are nearby, but in every way that matters they may as well be worlds away from him. He's always had a hard time seeing others on the same plane of existence as himself.

Uryuu isn't concentrating on them anyways. _Let__'__s __see __what__'__s __in __here. _Discarding the idea of opening the now somewhat rusted strong box for now, he focuses in the hatbox.

Sure enough, Soken's notes are sitting on top, loose papers and a thick, bound notebook. Uryuu flips through these papers, and sure enough he sees what he can decipher to be notes on Quincy techniques, what learning these techniques grants the user and how to learn. What he also sees is what appears to be more personal accounts, and there's more.

_I__ never __knew __all __of __this __was __in __here. _Beneath the papers, there are a multitude of photographs, masses of them. Uryuu recognizes some of these people, but most of them he does not, and the number of relatively recent-looking pictures is far outweighed by the ones that look so old they might crumble in his hands. Pictures that should be encased in a protective covering, instead of jumbled in a box. _I__ wonder __who __all __of __these __people __are._

With a strange, still calmness, Uryuu looks the pictures over. If he looks closely, he can spot some small similarities between the features of these people and his own, most especially with a woman whom he assumes was his grandmother—the only pictures she appears in are with a man and a child Uryuu knows to be Soken and Ryuuken respectively.

And then, he meets his own eyes.

It's very odd, Uryuu decides, to see a picture of himself from when he was younger. Like seeing himself, but not finished yet. To say it's difficult to connect this small, beaming child with himself is an understatement. _I__'__d __forgotten __I__ could__ smile __like __that. _The differences are jarring.

Uryuu puts the photographs he had pulled out back in the hatbox; the bright, hot sunlight would probably only damage the older ones anyway. Instead, he focuses on the notes, sees names like _hirenkyaku_ and _Ransoutengai_ and _ginto_ and many others, and drinks in the words like a man delivered from the desert.


	124. 124: Sweet

**Title**: Sweet**  
>AN**: This one is going to be pretty light-hearted, at least in comparison to some of the last few chapters, not to mention short. Ume is a Japanese species of plum, though I'm told it has more in common with an apricot than anything else. They generally aren't eaten raw, and are pickled to make umeboshi.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>Uryuu has learned two things from buying his own food. The first is that he can't afford a great deal of it, since even with the burden of paying rent taken off his back there's still every other bill to worry about and he can only find so much work in the span of a month. The second, is that Uryuu has discovered that he has a taste for sweet things.<p>

_So __this __is __what __it __tastes __like, _Uryuu thinks to himself, downing the small piece of chocolate and, even unused to the taste on his tongue, quirks the slightest hint of a smile. He doesn't have any money to be spending on indulgences like this very often, but it's nice when he does.

Uryuu really never had any exposure to sweet things as a child. His grandfather likely couldn't afford such things, and was probably avoiding all but the most nutritious of foods for the sake of his health anyways. Ryuuken… Uryuu can't be sure, but he doesn't think Ryuuken likes sweet things. He doesn't eat that much to begin with, and Uryuu has never seen Ryuuken bring something sweet into the house, despite the fact that, unlike Soken, he had the money to do it.

As a child, the closest Uryuu came to eating what anyone would term as "sweets" was the occasional bit of fruit, usually figs. His grandfather had bought umeboshi once and Uryuu hadn't liked it, much to Soken's amusement; the old man went on to point out that he often used umeboshi to flavor the rice that the two of them would eat and he'd never complained about it before. Uryuu had made a sour face at that, which made his grandfather laugh. He had never had any exposure to chocolate or candy.

Now is a bit different. Uryuu tried his first bit of chocolate about two weeks previously, and the first thing he registered was amazement that it was so palatable.

(It's not what I expected at all_, __he __reflects, __letting __the __piece __of __chocolate __rest __for __as __long __in __his __mouth __as __humanly possible. __The __taste __of __chocolate __on __his __tongue __is __strange, __thick __and __rich__ and __gooey, __but __hardly __unpleasant. __In__ the __increasingly __chill __weather __of __early __autumn,__ he __feels __a __little __warmer,__ and __is __a__ little __reluctant __to __swallow.)_

It was more than palatable; if anything, Uryuu thinks he likes the taste very much. Picking up similar candies, not all of them chocolate, yielded similar results, so long as they weren't overpoweringly sweet. If they were, Uryuu grimaced and made a mental note to avoid them in future. Otherwise, all has been found to be enjoyable.

However, he knows where his priorities lie. Uryuu has more important things to be buying than candy, however much he likes the sweet taste. Even if he had the money, chocolate isn't something he'd be buying every day, nor even every week. Uryuu may like chocolate, but he doesn't like it _that _much. _It__'__ll__ rot __my__ teeth __out __of __my __head __anyway. __Best __to __avoid __it __most __of __the __time._

There's still a carton of lime sherbet being slid into the freezer when Uryuu gets home, though. He had a little extra money this month, he really does like the taste of it, and ice cream lasts longer than a chocolate bar, anyway.


	125. 125: Manage

**Title**: Manage**  
>AN**: Not much to say here.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>Standing outside in the pre-morning hours, rubbing his hands together for warmth and hoping that that apartment of Uryuu's either has central heating or that he's had enough sense to buy a radiator, that's the moment when it finally sinks in for Ryuuken. No longer completely noticing the cold (a more normal occurrence, since to begin with Ryuuken doesn't usually notice the cold at all), he pauses, hand on the latch to open his car door. Glassy eyes stare off into the distance.<p>

For the past three (_or __was __it __four?_) months, Ryuuken has avoided looking at the issue of Uryuu by ignoring it and by subconsciously (and sometimes not so subconsciously) maintaining the belief that of course he would be back. When the first day had passed, then the first week, then the discovery that Uryuu had (somehow) gotten an apartment and even through Ryuuken covering rent for the wayward child, he'd been sure Uryuu would come back.

_A __boy __his __age __can__ not __hope __to __survive __on __his __own,__ no __matter __how __ridiculously __lucky __he __is __otherwise. _Uryuu has an astonishing amount of good luck for being a member of a race who in tradition was renowned for tremendously _bad_ luck; since he's still alive after all the times he's placed himself in harm's way, Ryuuken will readily acknowledge Uryuu's good luck. The point, however, remains that even if Uryuu is a lucky boy, he's just a boy. He's just a child, a minor, too young to be by himself or employed by most respectable workplaces.

_What__ is __Uryuu__ supposed __to __live __off __of? __Money __from __odd__ jobs? _Ryuuken's mouth twists grimly; he has a large familiarity with the inability of odd jobs to take care of every need. After his mother had died, Ryuuken had eventually been forced to find work, since his father was too busy hunting Hollows as a way to block out pain to notice that the house was falling apart around him; Ryuuken had become the sole breadwinner in that family. However, being fourteen meant that most places wouldn't hire him which left Ryuuken with two options.

One, Ryuuken could lie about his age in order to get steady work. He was tall for a fourteen-year-old and looked older than his years; it probably would have worked at first. However, that wasn't a viable option. Eventually, Ryuuken's deception would have been found out and he would have risked losing the money he had earned, or worse. What Ryuuken was left with was to take odd jobs and try to earn as much as he could off of them. Work a month here, a week there, and so on.

Ryuuken knows through bitter experience that odd jobs just aren't enough to live on comfortably. A the end of the month there would be barely any money left after the bills were paid to buy food. He'd only gotten through high school without starving because he had friends who were better off than him, and these friends didn't want him to starve.

Even without having to worry about the rent of a Tokyo apartment, no matter whether it's a decent apartment or not, Uryuu can not possibly be living well. _Does __he __even __have __the __money __to __eat? __I__'__ll __be __surprised__…_

Uryuu can't be living well, but it's sunk in for Ryuuken, finally, long after the boy has gone, that he's not coming back.

There's too much pride in the boy, too much stubborn pride. Uryuu would not admit that he was in pain or that he needed help if his life depended on it. He could be starving for all Ryuuken knows, and he would never come back. Uryuu equates coming back with swallowing his pride, getting down on his knees and groveling. He won't be back.

_He __could __be __killed __at __any __time, __if __not __by __a __Hollow __than __by __some __gun-toting, __sword-wielding __Yakuza __lunatic. __Either __way __I __suspect__ the __death __would __be __at __least __partially __Uryuu__'__s__ fault, __if __not __his __fault __in __entirety. _And dead Uryuu would be, just shy of fourteen and found somewhere, in a park or a gutter, mangled, bloodied, broken.

Everyone leaves the place they were born to eventually. Ryuuken himself had left home at eighteen, unusually early, and Uryuu has both continued that trend and taken it to absurd levels. But he has left. And he's not coming back.

-0-0-0-

For Uryuu, the moment of revelation comes three days later, as he runs a needle through firm white cloth. He's made it known around the apartment complex, as best he can, that he's good with a needle and willing to do repairs for cash, and as a result finds himself repairing the hem of a neighbor's tablecloth. _You__'__d__ think __they __pulled __this __out __on __purpose, _Uryuu thinks to himself.

A thought occurs to him that leaves the needle laying flat on the sturdy linen. _I __am__ repairing __someone__ else__'__s __tablecloth__ for __grocery __money.__ This __is __not __how __I__ thought __I__'__d __be __using __my __sewing __skills._

At first, leaving Ryuuken's house had been, well, _liberating._Terrifying, but liberating. Uryuu's not saying it isn't anymore. It's still so much easier to breathe here than it ever was there, and Uryuu doubts that he will ever go back of his own free will. The only way he could be persuaded to go back to that house would be if he was dragged kicking and screaming all the way there.

Still…

_I__'__m __on__ my __own. __Completely, __totally __on __my __own. _That brings its own connotations of freedom, but with freedom comes a different burden and something new for Uryuu to choke on.

He really hadn't thought things through. He'd never given anything resembling serious thought towards how he was going to pay the bills and make enough money to get food to eat. Uryuu's never been this hungry in his life, never been so keenly aware of how empty the refrigerator is in his life.

What's worse still are the thoughts that creep out from the darkest corners of his mind when Uryuu's alone in the dark, trying to sleep. Uryuu spends half of his time sleeping on the futon, since he hasn't yet gotten used to sleeping in a room without a window. A car passes by on the road, his face is drenched in golden light through the curtains and Uryuu wakes up, these thoughts racing through his mind.

Even lacking anything resembling guilt over trying to get out from Ryuuken's shadow, Uryuu still gets the vague feeling of regret. He doesn't think Ryuuken's worried about him at all, but still, Uryuu has to wonder about him from time to time. _I__ wonder__ if __he__'__s __starved__ to __death __yet; __he __never __remembers __to __eat_.

_Why am I worrying about him at all? Why do I even care, after everything that's happened?_

He's "tried" to get out from Ryuuken's shadow. Tried, but never quite accomplished. There are bills to pay, worries about food, and the vague regret, the regret that causes resentment against Ryuuken and against himself to rise in his throat again.

_I__'__m __sure __I__'__ll __manage __somehow, _Uryuu tells himself, picking up the needle again and sliding it between linen threads. He has to pay full attention so he doesn't make any mistakes. _I__'__'__ll__ manage._

He's never going back. He'll just have to manage.


	126. 126: Bandages

**Title**: Bandages**  
>AN**: Again, not much to say.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>It was always difficult sitting still and letting someone else clean his wounds and swath them in bandages. The anesthetic had bitten into his skin and Uryuu had always fought back a yelp of pain, not always with success. Bandages were wound so tight as to restrict the movement of his limbs, and even if they did properly staunch the blood, Uryuu didn't appreciate how sore he was after the bandages were rumored.<p>

As hard as it was for Uryuu to stand this treatment from someone else, having to do it for himself, by himself, is so much worse.

_The __Hollow __is __still __keening, __writhing __on __the __dead __grass, __but __it __will __be __dead __soon, __its __limbs __already __starting __to __wither __away. __The __keens __are __a __strange, __alien __sound, __unlike __anything __else __found __in __nature, __more __piercing __than __the __autumn__ cold __could __ever __be_.

_It__ had __been __fast; __Uryuu __would __give __it __that. __More __and __more __he's __been __able __to __avoid __all __but __the __most __superficial __of __injuries, __thanks __in large __part __to __discoveries __made __while__ reading __his __grandfather's __notes,__ but __this __Hollow __had __been __as __quick __as __lightning __and __Uryuu __wasn't __quite __able __to __get __out __of __range__ of __its hooked __claws__ quickly __enough_.

I have to get home, _Uryuu __thinks __to __himself. __He __cradles __his __sore, __bleeding __arm__ as __he __walks __off, __back __towards __his__ apartment. _No need to stick around and watch it die; this thing's done for.

_Just __in__ case __the __Hollow __has __the__ strength __for __one __last __charge, __Uryuu __wastes __no __time__ getting __away __as __he __heads __home. __He__ doesn't __think __he'd __have __the __energy__ to __keep __fighting __if __the __Hollow __decided __it __didn't __want __to __die__ before __having __him __for __a __meal_.

Uryuu feels lightning shoot up his arm as he dabs antiseptic over the deep cut. Blood still oozes out from the jagged gash, complicating the process. Every once in a while his fingers find something that looks like a scale. Long, thin and white, glossy when the blood is washed off of them. Uryuu tosses the scales (_probably__ spines, __in __actuality_, he notes absently), every one of them, in the waste basket. All they serve is a reminder that anything that looks like feathers on a Hollow from a distance probably has an edge sharp enough to pierce skin. Uryuu doesn't want any piece of a Hollow in his apartment.

Frustrated, he finds himself starting the process over completely. Uryuu has had water boiling in an old kettle over the stove (he does remember to use hot water now) fur just this occasion, turning the stove off when the water reached boiling and letting it cool for long enough that it wouldn't burn his skin. _Water __hot __enough __kills __most __microbes, _Uryuu repeats out of a book he read abstractedly. _I__ wonder __if __Hollows__ have __bacteria __living __on __them__ like __living __things __do. __If __they __do, __I __wonder __if __hot __water __can __kill __undead __bacteria._

A strip of linen cloth is dipped into the kettle and Uryuu scrubs insistently at his arm, biting down on his lip to draw his mind away from the pain. The water is still scalding hot, and the skin around the cut, formerly ashen, goes a bright pinkish-red. The cloth goes down on the counter dyed scarlet with blood and reeking on copper, but for the moment his cut has topped bleeding, so Uryuu seizes his bottle of antiseptic and jar of cotton balls, and sets to work.

_This __is__ all __getting __a__ bit __expensive, _he admits as the antiseptic stings and screams and bites; it's almost more painful than getting the injury itself was. Having become aware that there are young children in his apartment complex, Uryuu has considered offering his services as a tutor. That sort of thing pays well, but Uryuu's not sure he'd be able to work with a child without losing his temper and his patience with the unfortunate child in question. _Maybe __I __should __do __that, __though. __I__ can't __afford __to __not __have __the __money__ for __medicine._

Eventually, he finishes with the antiseptic, and Uryuu turns his attention to the bandages.

No matter how hard he tries, Uryuu can't get the bandages as tight as they need to be. Unfortunately, the bandages are always just slack enough for blood to seep out through the gauze. It's just impossible to get the bandages adequately tight when it's Uryuu winding them himself.

"_When __are __you __going __to __realize __that __you __need __to __have __these __cuts __treated?"__ Ryuuken __snaps. There's a strangely rushed quality to his voice, the complete antithesis of his slow, steady hands. His voice may be rushed and snappish, but his hands could not be more careful; Uryuu can at least trust him not to botch the job. __"You __can't __just __ignore __your __injuries __and__ expect __them __to __go __away. __All __that __will __do __is __leave __you __with __a__ raging __infection __and __a __stay __in __the __hospital_.

_Uryuu says nothing as Ryuuken pulls the bandages tight over his bloodied torso. There's nothing to say that will make this experience any better. He's too tired to argue with Ryuuken today. All Uryuu wants to do is sleep._

Uryuu learned from observation how to clean cuts and gashes. That was easy, and whatever Ryuuken thinks of him, Uryuu is not an idiot—he's learned how to clean the wounds.

_Come __on, __come __on. __This __has __to__ be __tight __enough;__ I__ can __barely __feel __my__ hand. _Uryuu hopes the bandages will be tight enough, but when he slides the metal clasp to effectively tie it off, there's still more slack than he would have liked.

He's gotten used to treating his own wounds, not only wounds gotten hunting Hollows, but from training accidents. Uryuu has found himself cradling burnt patches of skin and what he could swear were carpet burns were they not obtained while attempting to perform techniques learned only from written notes. He's found himself sore and aching, barely able to even move for the first few minutes and exhausted for days afterwards, wanting to do nothing more than sleep. He can treat the cuts, the burns, and sleep off his exhaustion like a veteran. But properly tight bandages are just out of reach.

He can clean the cuts, but there are just some things he can't do himself.


	127. 127: Tutor

**Title**: Tutor**  
>AN**: **Haddrell**: After your remark in the review you left in the previous chapter, I just had to write this.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>Daisuke huffs, folding his arms across his chest. The gesture is more than a little comical considering it's a six-year-old who's crossing his arms, furrowing his brow and jutting out his lower lip, but Uryuu's not laughing. Scowling, the younger boy slumps back in his chair at the kitchen table, and Uryuu knows from that stance that he's ready to give up altogether.<p>

_I __promised __your __father; __I __am __not __giving __up __that __easily. __Good __grief; __how__ many __people __have __you __driven __into __insanity __before__ today? _Uryuu wonders of Daisuke, sorely aggravated. _How __many __victims __have __you __left behind __in __mental __wards?_

What he was doing before just wasn't cutting it. Various odd jobs and making repairs to other people's linens or clothes just wasn't enough. Oh yes, Uryuu could pay the bills at the end of the month, but only just, and he was left with perilously little money for food or other expenses. _I __can__ not __wait __until __I__'__m __old __enough __to __get __a __proper __job. _Asking a certain person for money has never been and never will be an option, so Uryuu had to look elsewhere to supplement his measly income.

Uryuu knows he's smart. Even if there is very little else he can say about himself, he knows he's smart. His grades are the highest in his school and once he understands the subject matter he's studying, he can breeze through with little difficulty. He sees no obstacle in using his intelligence to his advantage.

The gossip grapevine around the apartment complex has its uses from time to time. Uryuu heard through this grapevine that his neighbor three doors down to the left has a young son who's struggling in school with, well, just about everything. Eventually, said neighbor, Hayagawa by name, started asking around if anyone knew of a good tutor. Uryuu took the opportunity to volunteer himself.

Of course, Hayagawa was skeptical of a fourteen-year-old's ability to successfully tutor his son, demanding to know what sort of experience and credentials Uryuu possessed. It took a fair bit of persuasion to convince Hayagawa that Uryuu was capable of tutoring his son.

Even then, Hayagawa was going to find someone else (_"__I__'__m __sorry, __but __I__ just __want __someone __with __more __experience.__"_), until the issue of cost came up.

Cram school and proper adult tutors, trained to do what they do, ask for more money than what Hayagawa can afford. He had balked at what Uryuu had asked too, but cram schools and adult tutors asked for more.

Hayagawa had come back to him with a sheepish look on his face and asked _"__Can__ we __possibly __negotiate __on __this?__"_

Uryuu had responded, with a decidedly bland expression, _"__I__ have __to __pay __the __bills __too, __Hayagawa-san. __This __is __my__ final __offer;__ take __it __or __leave __it.__" _Others might have thought him cruel, but the plain truth is that Uryuu _does _need to pay the bills, and he has no compunction about charging a little more than what Hayagawa considered pleasant. He needs the money entirely too much for compunction. If Hayagawa doesn't want to cooperate Uryuu will just take his show on the road and find another child who needs a tutor.

Smarting at the knowledge that he had been successfully out-maneuvered by a young teenager, but not really having any other options, Hayagawa relented, on the condition that he'd be watching from his living room to make sure Uryuu was actually effective as a tutor. _"__He__ can __be__ a __bit __difficult,__" _Hayagawa advised, _"__so __if __you__'__re __going __to__ make __any __progress __with him you__'__ll __have __to __be __as __stubborn __as __he __is.__"_

_Maybe I should have listened to him and found a different line of work. Or maybe just a different child._

"Hayagawa-kun…" _Do__ not __raise __your __voice, __do __not __snap __at __him. __You __will __be __thrown __out __immediately __if __you __do __that. _Uryuu fights the urge to rub his forehead as he looks the child over, but not in the eye. He's suddenly very glad he was sure to finish all of his homework before coming over to Hayagawa's apartment; he gets the distinct impression that he's going to be here for a while. "Please try to focus on the task at hand."

Daisuke's scowl deepens, brown eyes narrowing. "Why do you keep calling me 'Hayagawa-_kun_?'", he asks bluntly. "You sound like you learned all your manners straight out of a book."

_Brat_. Uryuu shoots a withering glare in Daisuke's reaction and (as much as Uryuu doesn't want to admit it) to his satisfaction, the child shrinks slightly, face flushing red. The boy hit a little too close to the mark for Uryuu's liking; he just couldn't keep from glaring this time. "What I call you is none of your concern," Uryuu responds curtly.

"Whatever." Daisuke recovers his surly bravado with a roll of the eyes. "If you're trying to make yourself sound grown-up, it's not working. This whole thing is useless anyways," he mumbles, looking away and showing the first sign of vulnerability all afternoon.

Unwillingly, Uryuu can't help but agree with him (A moment of spite, he's sure). He never had any trouble with anything but math in elementary school, and even then he'd had no issue with addition and subtraction and anything else either came to him, or he badgered his grandfather to show him how to do the work. _I__ guess __it__'__s __just __different __for __him, _Uryuu supposes tiredly. _Come __on;__ you __knew __he__ had __to __be __having __difficulties __if __his __father __was __looking __for __a __tutor._

The battered little television set crackles from the living room, Hayagawa sitting on the couch, no doubt listening for signs of progress or wavering on the part of the young tutor. Uryuu doesn't know what Hayagawa's watching and frankly he doesn't much care; he's never understood the point of television. However, he suspects that the television is proving to be a something of a distraction for Daisuke since his eyes keep flickering towards it every ten seconds, and if Uryuu had a little more confidence he'd ask Hayagawa to turn it off.

"Hayagawa-kun." Uryuu's eyes scan the top of Daisuke's dark-haired head. "Your father is very concerned that you do well in school. You don't want to disappoint him, do you?" His voice is very quiet. To be honest, Uryuu feels a little ashamed of himself for using a tactic like that, give that _this_ hits a little too close to home too. It's a bit like kicking a puppy, or some other small, cute animal, not because he wants to or because he was feeling cruel that day, but because he was walking down the street and didn't see it there.

For the second time that bright, cold afternoon, Daisuke shows the signs of vulnerability, eyes drooping and mouth twitching violently. "Not really," he mutters.

At this, Uryuu can finally feel some sympathy for his 'student.' _I__ know__ the__ feeling._

"But I don't understand any of it!" Daisuke bursts out. Hayagawa looks up from the couch and Uryuu forces the hideous caricature of a nervous smile to assure him that nothing's wrong. "How can I figure out how to do all of this if it doesn't make any sense?"

_I can't quit now, and I can't get thrown out. I need the money too bad for that._

"Well if you will just listen to me I'll show you how to work the problems," Uryuu retorts, blue eyes flashing. "I'm trying to help you," he adds in a slightly softer voice. "Believe it or not." The sharp edge returns.

Daisuke shows some sign of relenting at that, but the mutinous look is still there and Uryuu resists the urge to groan. He needs the money too much to quit, but _God, _this is going to be a long afternoon.


	128. 128: Soba

**Title**: Soba**  
>AN**: Once again, nothing to say, and good _God_ is that getting monotonous.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>It's freezing in the parking lot, almost intolerably cold even if there is no wind, rain or snow, but Uryuu still sits in the lawn chair, eating his kake soba in silence. No one really notices him, unless you count Daisuke. He sticks his tongue out and makes other sorts of grotesque, impolite faces, before losing interest when Uryuu doesn't even bat an eye—he's gotten too used to it, and, admittedly, Uryuu gets about as much pleasure infuriating Daisuke as Daisuke does him. To everyone else, Uryuu is as invisible as a spirit.<p>

Uryuu had heard that the residents of the apartment complex were going to be gathering in the parking lot for a New Year's party. Personally he hadn't planned on attending, mainly because he'd rather stay in his apartment. Uryuu doesn't like crowds, and his apartment (thankfully) has central heating that works, a joy to wake up to on frigid December mornings.

Then, he heard that there would be food, _free_ food, no less. That's the only reason Uryuu came; he's only here for the food.

If he's going to eat the food prepared for all of them, Uryuu supposes it's only polite to stick around in the midst of the party, even if he's not going to be talking to anyone and the frosty night air is far colder than what he likes. _I__ don__'__t __see __why __Yamashita-san __couldn__'__t __have __held __this __inside,_ Uryuu thinks peevishly; the cup of soba quivers in his shaking hands. _It__ would __certainly __be __a __more __pleasant __locale._

He pulls his shabby coat closer about him. Having forgotten to take a coat with him when he left the house (it had been spring at the time, after all), Uryuu started frequenting stores when the weather changed. With the money he's gotten from tutoring, Uryuu has had enough excess money lately to afford a long, light brown felt coat from a secondhand store that looks to have been dated at about 1950. It's thick, alright, but not quite thick enough.

_Isn't New Year's supposed to a family affair anyway? Why aren't all of these people with their families?_

Knowing that more than one of his neighbors has to be asking the same of him, Uryuu doesn't put that question to the air.

There's free food, anyway. Uryuu _knows_ he shouldn't be complaining if he's getting to eat for free. That's an unspoken law of polite society, and Uryuu is going to follow it. Someone, he doesn't know who, but _someone_, all the same, has put forth a great deal of time and effort into preparing as much food as there is present, and he won't complain, even if it is cold and crowded.

Hayagawa and Daisuke are still here; the latter is badgering his father to take him to the nearby temple to hear the bells ringing at midnight. _Good __luck__ staying __awake __that __long, __kid. _Uryuu suspects that the way this night will end for Daisuke is with him falling asleep long before midnight comes. All the same, Hayagawa seems on the verge of giving in, a small smile on his face, and Daisuke's eyes are glowing. Yamashita is milling around the crowd, bundled in a thick sweatshirt and that tired look still attached to her face, graying hair brushing her shoulders now. Uryuu spots some of the college kids who thunder around upstairs at odd hours of the night and early morning, disturbing his sleep. The rest of the faces all run together.

Uryuu returns to his soba, drinking the broth and winding the long, thin noodles around his chopsticks. He's not really supposed to be eating it before midnight, but no one here seems to mind. Uryuu doesn't eat soba very often; in fact, this is only the second time he's ever eaten it, something that brought an incredulous look to the face of the woman who gave him the cup. Uryuu had bought a cup out of the grocery store when he was young once, but Ryuuken told him not to buy any more, since microwavable soba could be high in sodium; he said the same of ramen.

Everything about this New Year's is radically different from every New Year's Uryuu has experienced in the past. He's not eating anything cooked in a microwave, hot at the edges but stone cold at the center, and doesn't get the rather deflated feeling eating such fare accompanies. More importantly, though Uryuu sits by himself, does not speak, is not spoken to, and for all intents and purposes is a thousand miles away from anyone, he does not experience the more debilitating sort of loneliness.

There are two types of loneliness that Uryuu knows, though he is far more familiar with one than he is with the other. The milder sort of loneliness is a niggling feeling at the pit of his stomach. Uryuu knows that something is missing, everything is entirely too quiet and he gets the still, empty feeling he's so very used to. The other type of loneliness is violent and capable of existing in tandem with the milder sort; it is as familiar to Uryuu as the back of his pale, long-fingered hand. It's the crushing, all-consuming sense of being completely alone, lost in the overwhelming silence.

The latter sort of loneliness has been a blight on Uryuu's mind for much of his childhood and still haunts the edges of his mind when he wakes up in the pitch black and can't get back to sleep, all-encompassing isolation reaching with its shadowy hand to seize his throat. He still feels more lost and alone in a crowd than he does anywhere else. But the suffocating feeling of forcibly shoved into that position is gone from his life now.

When he still lived in his last house, Uryuu inevitably spent New Year's alone. Ryuuken might have been at work (the hospitals, or at least the one Ryuuken worked at, stayed open during New Year's even if just about everything else closed, and for good reason), but more often than not, he was home, but unreachable. Eyes glassy, his normal irritable nature replaced by sheer abject depression. The distance between them was never more profound than it was at that time of the year.

Uryuu finishes off his soba but doesn't get up from his chair. He's heard there will be fireworks soon and that they'll be visible from the parking lot. That, he decides, is as good an excuse to stay as the food is. _I'll just have to hold out out against the cold for a little longer. _His nose and cheeks are starting to get chapped even without any wind, and Uryuu digs his nose into his deep coat collar.

It doesn't always have to be the same.


	129. 129: Buttons

**Title**: Buttons**  
>AN**: Another light-hearted one.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>Normally, Uryuu's sewing adventures involve putting something back together, be it a torn jacket or blanket, a stuffed animal that's falling apart, or a patchwork quilt whose seams are pulling away from each other. That's what most people come to Uryuu wanting him to do, handing over small sums of money in the process (Uryuu is getting a good amount of money, at least what a fourteen-year-old trying to be self-sufficient can call good, from tutoring, but in most cases he still charges for things like this, to be safe; the only exceptions he makes are for a small child or for someone who clearly can't pay). Fixing things is his area of expertise, after all, fixing things of cloth to make up for everything he couldn't fix outside of that world. For the things of cloth, he is always fixing.<p>

Today, however, Uryuu is pulling things apart and recreating them.

It started with a milder project and snowballed from there. Since it came into his possession, Uryuu has been aware that the old gray sock monkey's stitching is loose; the skinny, white-tipped limbs and tail are just a little too loose. Though Uryuu doesn't handle the sock monkey very often anymore (_and he was never really all that rough with it as a child, but apparently it's still suffered for having been a child's toy_), he is afraid that eventually the limbs will fall off by accident. As a result of that worry, Uryuu decided to take preemptive action.

With the utmost caution, Uryuu took a tiny pair of scissors and cut through the coal black thread connecting the sock monkey's floppy limbs and tail to the main body. Threading a needle with firm, strong black thread (Uryuu had gray thread, which would have blended in better, but he ended up using black thread instead out of a sense of nostalgia), Uryuu reattached the limbs, deciding that whoever had made the toy in the first place must not have been that good at sewing, to leave the stitching as loose is it was.

He had stared down at the doll clutched in his hands after his work was done, and Uryuu rubbed one of the eyes with a thin finger. The button eyes of the sock monkey, once a glossy black, had, probably long before the thing ever became his, become, with the passage of time, dull and scuffed and scratched. Unlike the stitching, Uryuu didn't take the eyes out. Unlike with thread, Uryuu didn't exactly have a large number of spare buttons lying around.

_Buttons… _That's how the idea started to form in his head.

Uryuu has never been terribly fond of buttons; in fact, he rather hates them. They're a hassle, they're always breaking off if you're not careful and it's impossible to find the right sort of replacement if you don't have the ones that came with the shirt to begin with, and frankly, when Uryuu wakes up in the mornings, tired and sore with aching arms, his fingers aren't terribly clever and having to do up the buttons is awful. He needs clothes quick and easy to get on and off, not something that thwarts his every attempt to get dressed easily; and buttons don't help with that.

Of course, Uryuu doesn't really like t-shirts any better than he does buttons; Uryuu doesn't like to think of himself as snobbish, but there's just something low class about t-shirts, or so he believes. _There's also the matter of thinking that he looks a bit like a slob in a shirt without a collar._ So he's been putting up with button-down shirts all his life, even though he can't stand buttons. There hasn't been a solution to his quandary.

The rest of the idea comes to Uryuu when he reads instructions on how to remove buttons from shirts and how to put zippers on shirts that were formerly button-down. _Hello, what's this?_ He raises an eyebrow and frowns for a moment, eyes scanning up and down on the instructions and a shrewd look overtaking his face. Skip a beat and Uryuu is grabbing his coat, his key and some change to go raid the local craft store for the supplies he will need.

_You know, when I think of the phrase "answer to my prayers", a zipper wasn't exactly what I had in mind. I suppose it works just as well, though_.

Just to make sure he actually knows how to do this, Uryuu tests things out on a shirt he would wear during summer, carefully (but all too gladly) removing the buttons and sewing up the buttonholes before attaching the components of the zipper.

_It works,_ Uryuu marvels, dumbfounded, smoothing out the shirt on his lap. _I don't believe it; it actually works._ The zipper doesn't fall off half an hour after he attached it and it isn't so obtrusive as to make the shirt look tacky; nor does it make the shirt billow out awkwardly when he zips it all the way up. _Oh, this is much better than having to bother with buttons._

With this encouragement in hand, Uryuu gets to work on his other shirts—not that there are many to speak of. Over the course of three days (he does have other things he needs to be doing during this time, after all), Uryuu converts his button-down shirts to zipper shirts in a frenzy of spiteful productivity. He only leaves his coat alone because it's January and still freezing outside and Uryuu supposes that it might take longer to do his coat than a shirt; considering the instructions didn't say if they would work for coats, Uryuu's not sure if he should do it at all, despite his hatred of buttons.

Over time, buttons disappear from sight in Uryuu's apartment, being dropped in his sewing kit for when someone needs a new button for their shirt but didn't save the extras they got when they bought it. The only place where buttons are visible at all are on his coat and his sock monkey, and, if Uryuu has his way, it's the only place they'll ever be visible again.

It's a markedly pleasant change, all told, not having to fumble with buttons when his fingers are bruised and bleeding. A blight is gone from Uryuu's home and the only headaches now are from having to deal with Daisuke three to five days a week. Uryuu isn't sure if the boy is genuinely having that much trouble with school, if he's being deliberately perverse, or if he's faking it for the purpose of making Uryuu come over; all options are unappealing, and the latter is downright horrifying by implication.

Then, Uryuu gets another bright idea.

_I wonder if I could get away with doing that to my school uniform…_


	130. 130: Midnight

**Title**: Midnight**  
>AN**: I don't bite. Just sayin'.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>Once upon a time, Ryuuken would come home to find a thin, pale child asleep on the couch, using one of the cushions as a pillow and looking rather cold without a blanket over him. At one time, Uryuu made a habit of falling asleep on the couch, sleeping there almost more often than he did in his own bed. On nights like this, Ryuuken would stare at Uryuu with tired, drooping eyes, and lean over him, just long enough to take off the glasses that Uryuu would invariably forget to remove before drifting off.<p>

Ryuuken sometimes likes to maintain the pretense that he doesn't know why his son could be found asleep on the couch so many nights. There are a lot of things Ryuuken likes to claim ignorance to. However, as with most of these things, the ignorance is only a front for avoiding unpleasant truths.

In reality, Ryuuken supposes that yes, he probably does know why Uryuu spent so many nights asleep on the couch as a child. Waiting for him to come home, most like. Knowing the implications of that, Ryuuken tried not to think about it. His only concession was to occasionally remember to watch the time at work.

As the years wore on, the number of nights Ryuuken would come home to find a dark-haired child asleep on the living room couch slacked off. Eventually, Uryuu quit altogether, sleeping in his own bed without fail; somewhere along the way, he'd lost the level of faith needed to sit up waiting for Ryuuken to come home. Subconsciously, Ryuuken couldn't help but be a touch relieved by this change. Uryuu had, at least, left that level of childishness behind him. (_There __are __other __reasons __for__ this __relief __as __well, __deeper, __darker, __more __shameful__ ones, __the __ones __that __make __him __feel __so __very __dirty. __Ryuuken __never __acknowledges __these __reasons._)

Then, Uryuu stopped sleeping in his bed, too.

There are no clocks nearby with which to tell the time, but if Ryuuken had to guess, he'd say that it's sometime after midnight. The sterile white halls of the hospital are not entirely deserted—a few orderlies, along with the night shift, are present, and there's always the patient who gets into a car wreck at midnight—but they are spaced out far and few between, and nearly silent. For some reason Ryuuken has never fully fathomed, everyone, including him, tends to hold conversations in whispers after the clock strikes twelve.

At the moment, Ryuuken sits in a chair in a hall on the third floor, with only the creaks of the air conditioning unit turning on and off to break the palpable silence. He doesn't feel even slightly tired, could probably go at this for another hour at least, but all the same, Ryuuken wonders if he shouldn't be heading home. He's got work tomorrow and if he doesn't sleep he won't be at his best; besides, someone has to make sure Uryuu—

No, wait. Ryuuken catches himself at that thought before it's allowed to finish, and he reminds himself that Uryuu doesn't live there anymore.

This is the tenth night that Ryuuken has stayed at work past midnight. It's just more efficient that way; he can get every bit of paperwork done and not have to worry about it when he gets home. Ryuuken's stopped staying home on Sundays. There's really no point, considering it's not like there's anything he does at home besides read and, honestly, the house is too big.

It's just too big.

When Uryuu still lived there, Ryuuken did try to limit himself. Uryuu will likely never believe it if Ryuuken tries to tell him so, but he did. Ryuuken rarely stayed at work until the early hours of the morning or later when Uryuu was still there, and if he did it was usually an accident. If nothing else, Ryuuken had recognized that leaving Uryuu by himself all night long wasn't a wise thing to do. What if he got sick or hurt? This become an especial concern once Soken was no longer around for Uryuu to call in the event of such an emergency.

Once Uryuu left home, Ryuuken didn't have such a responsibility on his back anymore. _If__ he __wishes __to __play __the __adult, _Ryuuken thinks bitterly, _then __he __is __to __be __responsible __for __his __own __health. __If __he__ becomes __sick,__ he __must __go __to __a __doctor. __If __he __is __injured, __he__ must __go __to __a__ hospital. __And __if __he __dies, __it__'__s __his __own __fault._

There's no reason to stay at home. There's no one to come home to.

The house is too big. Ryuuken wonders if Uryuu ever noticed that. Too big, the narrow hallway seeming to open up for miles. The walls are drowned in silence, the air so unnaturally still that it's all Ryuuken can do not to choke on it. _But__ it __seemed __so __small __before. _When Uryuu was still there, Ryuuken never saw it—if anything, with Uryuu there the house seemed too _small_—but now, it's clear as day.

_He __had __to __have __noticed_. _Maybe __that__'__s __why__…_

The hospital is the only place of refuge he has, a place where Ryuuken doesn't have to face the dead air and the echoes and truth. Here there is order, a world that to others might seem chaotic but to Ryuuken is comfortingly predictable. He can fill his hands with time here, and not hear the silence. This is more his home than anywhere else.

Ryuuken just can't linger there anymore, not for any longer than what's necessary; he takes no pleasure in stepping through the threshold of the front door. The house is too big, too filled with shattered hopes and shattered dreams and hollow emptiness that results that can never escape. His house is a tomb, a monument to every dead future that could have been but will never come true now, and he just can not bring himself to stay.


	131. 131: Silence

**Title**: Silence**  
>AN**: Okay, there's only really a little blurb about school counseling in Japan on Wikipedia, but from what I've gathered school counselors generally only address behavioral issues.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>When he's told to go to the counselor's office, Uryuu does so with trepidation. The bell has just rung to let out of school and he can't for the life of him tell what sort of emotions are on his teacher's face. That's odd for him, considering that usually he can gauge reasonably well the emotions of others, but the teacher's face is a mask, utterly impenetrable.<p>

_What's this all about?_

The sunlight pouring in through the windows is hot on Uryuu's neck as he travels in the opposite direction from his fellow classmates, away from the front door and further into the interior of the school, towards the counselor's office.

Uryuu has never been called to the counselor's office before, not in elementary school, and not in junior high. He's only had classmates called out of class a handful of times, and they had seemed nervous too. No one really likes being called to an office, be it the counselor's, the principal's, or even the nurse's, during class. If they aren't already nervous when they're called, the looks on their classmates' faces and the whispers passed around will ignite nervousness like a fire in their belly.

_Why __have __I__ been __called __there __today? _Uryuu adjusts his glasses as he often does when he's nervous or unsure, pushing the bridge up his nose. They've never fit quite right, his glasses; the stems are just a little too long, and as a result they're always sliding down the bridge of his nose. The glass catches the light for a moment and Uryuu winces. _What__'__s __the __problem, __anyway?_

He keeps going over in his mind, over and over again, that he's never been called to the counselor's office, or the principal's, or anywhere else, unless he counts the time he had to go to the nurse to explain that he was taking iron supplements now for his anemia and that if he seemed a bit faint it was because of that.

For the most part, the faculty and administrators of his school don't seem to notice that Uryuu even exists. That's hardly a bad thing; Uryuu doesn't like to go noticed by anyone. The fact that he's been noticed now can't help but birth a sense of foreboding in him.

_What__ could __the __counselor __possibly __want __to __talk __about__ now? _He stops in his tracks as a horrible thought occurs to him. _Could__ they __have __found __out__… _After a moment, Uryuu shakes his head. _No .__No, __that __can__'__t __be __it. _Ryuuken paying his rent has advantages besides Uryuu not having to worry about that when he gets the bills at the end of the month. To any outsider looking at the situation, the fact that Ryuuken is paying his rent would likely lead them to the conclusion that Uryuu's moving out was an agreement between the two of them, rather than the result of Uryuu's decision to run away.

_It __must __be __something __else, __then. __But __what? __It__'__s __not __like __I __get __into __fights __or __graffiti __the __walls. __I__ don__'__t __misbehave, __I__ don__'__t __act __out __in __class_—_I__'__m __hardly __what __anyone __could __honestly __call __a __delinquent. __I__'__ve __done __everything __I __can __to __avoid __the __notice __of __others. __Why __has __that __changed __now?_

By Uryuu's logic, if he's being called to the counselor's office, it can't be for anything good. He's long cherished the suspicion that the only time a kid gets called to the counselor's office is if the school thinks they're about to explode and show up to school with an AK-47. _Come __to __think __of __it, __the __other __kids__ who __got __called __to __the __counselor__'__s __office __did __seem__ the __type __to __do__ something __like __that, _Uryuu notes irritably. _I __sincerely __hope __they __don__'__t __lump __me __in __with __that __crowd. __There__'__s __more __than __one __type __of __quiet, __you __know._

Through Uryuu's worried wonderings, he keeps moving towards the counselor's office, and he can't help but be a little surprised when he sees the plaque and realizes that he's arrived. _What, __already?__ Couldn__'__t __it __have __been __just __a__ little __longer?_

The door enclosing the counselor's office is a smooth, solid oak, just like every other door in the school. Uryuu looks at the golden plaque, just to make sure he's in the right place, and sure enough it reads:

**School Counselor  
>Ikeda Satomi<strong>

_This __is __the __right __place, __alright. _Gingerly, knowing he's likely to regret this, Uryuu lifts up his hand to knock on the counselor's door.

For what seems an eternity (but actually lasts anywhere from thirty seconds to a minute), Uryuu waits for a response, tugging at his sleeve cuffs and fiddling with his glasses madly. _Is__ she __even __in __there? _To someone who's already nervous enough to bolt, Uryuu finds this sort of delay intolerable. _I__ could __just __leave __now__ and __say __she __wasn__'__t __there __when __I __knocked._

Just as he's about to act on that thought, turn tail and run, there comes from within the office a "Come in."

Reluctantly, Uryuu pushes open the door and steps inside.

Ikeda's office reminds him much of Ryuuken's office, only a bit smaller, filled with bookcases packed with books, a desk situated in the middle of the room, and a large window at the back wall, covered by curtains so the room is lit only by a desk lamp. Naturally, Uryuu hates the room immediately.

There is a cushioned chair sitting in front of the desk, and Ikeda is poring over a file, tendrils of dark hair brushing the desk. "Sit down," she murmurs absently, and Uryuu lets his bag hit the ground with a dull thud as he does so. Uryuu sinks into the chair and can't help but think that the cushions are overstuffed. He fidgets with his sleeve cuffs (doing so with his glasses would be too obvious) as he waits for Ikeda to tell him what exactly he's doing here.

After a minute more of poring, Ikeda shuts the manila file with a sigh, running her hand over the folder lingeringly. She lifts her head, and Uryuu gets his first-ever look at the school's counselor.

Ikeda is a pale, thin-faced woman with extremely wavy dark hair; she doesn't look very old, probably somewhere in her late twenties to early thirties. She wears mahogany-colored horn-rimmed glasses and a dark sweater. The expression on her face is one Uryuu knows from what he has often worn: trying to smile, but not quite able to manage it. Somehow, that sort of face utterly fails to put Uryuu at ease.

"You are Ishida Uryuu-san?" Ikeda asks, netting her fingers together. Clear nail polish catches the lamplight, gleaming.

Uryuu nods wordlessly, clenching his knees. If his fingernails weren't so soft there's a strong possibility that they would have bitten through his trouser legs and his skin by now. It's all he can do not to blurt out a tactless question as to why he's been called here. _It__'__ll__ come __up __soon __enough. __Just __calm__ down. __If __you __lose __your __control __in __front __of __the__ counselor, __then __the __only __way __it __can __end__ is __with __you __in __a__ straitjacket __being __carted __off __to __the __nearest __padded __cell._

The counselor nods and reopens the file, taking a pen from a cup on her desk, and slides the open file onto a clipboard. She positions the clipboard so Uryuu can't see the file, and pries the cap off of the pen, scratching away at the paper before speaking up again.

"Is it alright if I ask you some questions?" Ikeda's dark eyes are narrowed and that false quality is still there at the smile that lingers on her thin lips; Uryuu can't tell whether she's trying to convince him that she's a friendly sort of person when she really isn't, or if, like him, that's really the most she can manage when smiling. Her pen stands poised over crisp white paper, ready to take down whatever she deems important.

"Of course," Uryuu responds politely, if a little too quickly. He feels his heart sink when Ikeda's eyes flash shrewdly and her pen flies over the paper. Uryuu has run into many people over the years who mistake politeness for social graces, but somehow he doubts Ikeda is among the sort of people who can be fooled by that. _Whatever__ she__'__s __writing, __it __can __not __possibly __be __a__ mark __in __my __favor._

Ikeda doesn't look up at him as she mutters, "Let's begin." In a more normal voice, she asks, "What is your favorite food?"

Uryuu looks away, frowning. _Is__ this __just __going __to __be__ some __sort __of __questionnaire? _"Mackerel miso soup." _Even __though __I__ barely __ever __eat __it __anymore;__ it__'__s __not __like __I__ have __the __money __to __buy __mackerel __every __night._

"Uh-huh. Favorite animal?"

"Butterflies." Ikeda looks up to adjust her glasses sternly. "Really." Uryuu can't quite keep the defensive note out of his voice. _Is__ that __really __so __hard__ to __believe?_

She doesn't looks convinced, but goes on to the next question anyway. "Do you like to listen to music?"

The questions go on like that for a good ten minutes or so, just small questions that frankly, don't seem very important. As far as Uryuu can tell, all this seems to be about is gathering small details on his life. They're just a touch invasive but he supposes he can't really have expected any different from a counselor.

Then, the questions start taking a different turn.

"Do you ever feel any sort of overwhelming anger?"

That question is so out of place from the last few questions that Uryuu stares at her, startled, not sure of what to say. For the first time, Ikeda shows some sign of cracks in her professional calm, sighing and asking again, "Do you ever feel any sort of overwhelming anger?" There's a slightly testy note in her voice.

Uryuu frowns uncertainly. "No, ma'am." He really doesn't like where this is going.

Lamplight catches on Ikeda's glasses lenses as she tilts her head. "Is there ever anything in the way of overwhelming guilt? Or maybe frustration, or sadness?"

"No, ma'am," Uryuu answers again, though this time he can't say it's the truth. Uryuu has never liked to lie, but he doesn't want to show anything resembling weakness in front of her and he has a feeling that he knows how this will end if he answers honestly. _Where __were __you __six __years __ago? _he wonders caustically. _Where __were __you __when __I _really _needed __a__ counselor? _That he probably still does need one doesn't occur to him.

"Alright. I understand that your father is your only relative still living. How is your relationship with him?" Ikeda probes, all too mildly.

_I__ knew __it. _Uryuu resists the urge to curl his lip and tell Ikeda _exactly _what his relationship with Ryuuken is like. All the other questions were invasive, but this goes entirely too far, and only confirms his suspicions as to why he was called up here in the first place. _So __you __really __do __think __I__'__m __going__ to __show__ up __to __school __one __day __with __an __assault __rifle, __do __you?_

Oddly enough, when the worst of his anger is spent, a wave of what can only be identified as gloom sweeps over Uryuu. It's entirely possible that Ikeda really does want to be helpful, and just can't find a way to express it without coming off as dispassionate or callous—Uryuu knows the feeling. However, he just can't take that chance. Uryuu doesn't want to be written off as psychotic or a danger to his classmates when he knows that he's anything but. And even if he could take the chance and, for once, trust in the decency of mankind, this isn't something that Uryuu can talk about.

He doesn't answer. The silence resounds in the cramped, dark office. Ikeda waits over a minute for a response, and when she finally realizes that there isn't one coming, a flash of what might be sadness, or might just be the lamplight, zips behind the surface of her eyes. "You can leave," she tells him quietly, pointing her pen in the direction of the door.

That Uryuu does, all too eagerly. Sunlight and fresh air has never tasted so sweet as it does when he pushes open the door and steps out into the outside world.

For better or worse, he's never called to the counselor's office again. Uryuu can only assume that whatever Ikeda wanted out of him, she got.


	132. 132: Score

**Title**: Score  
><strong>AN**: Those of you who have read my oneshot _Battle __Scars _probably recognize this one too. Also, sometimes teenage boys just have no common sense.  
><strong>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>Experiences with bullies have never been pleasant, but mercifully, they've usually been short. Uryuu isn't what anyone would term good company. In fact, he's universally considered unfriendly and cold to the point of being intimidating. So intimidating, in fact that, apparently, a well-timed frosty glare was enough to send the schoolyard bullies of his elementary school days packing. The bullies of elementary school, for all their bravado and posturing, were easily intimidated, and by the time Uryuu got to junior high he had a reputation for being not nearly so frail as he looked, and that was only known to the few who noticed him at all. Bullies are generally not a problem for him anymore.<p>

_Then__ again, _Uryuu muses absently, running scalding water over the straight, smooth gash on his left palm. He'll have to be especially careful about cleaning the wound this time; there's no telling where that trench knife's been. _Then __again, __they __looked __a __little __grown __to __be__ school__ bullies. _High school dropouts, maybe, but they looked a little old, even for that.

Uryuu takes a Q-tip—the incision is straight enough and deep enough for that—with the head soaked in antiseptic and dabs it on the gash. It has, thankfully, stopped bleeding, as have the shallower cuts on his fingers, simplifying the process. There's no concerned frown or rueful grimaces on his face this time, though. For once, Uryuu can honestly say that he's somewhat proud of his "war wounds."

This was the first time Uryuu's ever gotten into a fight with another human being, and he has to say, it's not anywhere close to what he's used to. What Uryuu's used to is fighting a creature of minimal or entirely nonexistent intelligence. A Hollow goes almost completely on instinct, on hunger and on the most basic of all animal drives, that of the need to survive. Human beings, even a couple of thugs, are considerably more intelligent than the average Hollow Uryuu runs into.

He was walking home from school and hadn't been expecting trouble. After all, there wasn't even the faintest sign of a Hollow anywhere in the area, and it wasn't like anyone human had ever tried to pick a fight with Uryuu before. They last thing he'd expected was for two young men to step out of an alley and demand whatever valuables he had on him.

In retrospect, though, Uryuu supposes he should have expected, even been anticipating, something like this. It's not like he lives in the best part of town—hardly the slums, but hazardous for the health all the same. He's a pale, scrawny, weedy-looking kid, the sort of thing that just screams "easy mark." If anything, that today was the first time something like this happened to him ought to be what's so surprising.

_I__ should __have __expected __it. _After swabbing a Q-tip over the wound on his palm and doing the same for the cuts on his fingers with cotton balls, Uryuu reaches for the roll of bandages and the box of Band-Aids on the kitchen counter. Putting gauze bandages on his fingers would just be overkill, and Uryuu does need this hand to write—no use in getting the fingers so stiff that they can't curl to hold a pencil.

Upon being confronted by two young men with knives and scowls on their faces, Uryuu did _not_ just roll over and give up. He did _not_ just hand them his money and walk the other way. His cash is hard-earned with blood, sweat, tears and headaches; he's not just going to give it up to every thug with a knife. Uryuu has spent his whole life being pushed around; he's not about to just let it happen to him every day anymore. He doesn't have the temperament for that.

When they see the bandages and the Band-Aids, Yamashita and Hayagawa both demand to know what happened. (_Uryuu __has __to __wonder __why __they__ notice __the__ small __length __of __bandages __on __his __palm __and __have __ignored__ every __time __he__'__s __shown__ up __with __deep __cuts __on __his __face__ and __both __of __his__ arms __heavily __swathed __in __bandages._) This leads to a terse explanation and both of them exclaiming something along the lines of _"__You __idiot! __You __could __have __been __killed; __why __didn__'__t __you __just __give __them __the __money?__"_

Uryuu can't bring himself to feel guilty, though, nor particularly ashamed. If doing what he did was idiotic, then Uryuu guesses he'll just have to go through life knowing that he is a complete and utter idiot. It was just too satisfying—not to mention hilarious—seeing the looks on the thugs' faces as Uryuu grabbed the trench knife before they could stab him with it, claimed it for his own, and ran off like lightning away from them before they could fully register what just happened. Sure, the gash on his palm is definitely going to scar (he's already got enough scars that this new one doesn't really matter to him), and sure, he ditched the knife when he realized that keeping it was a surefire way of having the police on his doorstep, but still:

Uryuu: One. Thugs: Zero.


	133. 133: Polite

**Title**: Polite**  
>AN**: I mentioned this in a review reply before, but when I get to the point of Uryuu's first involvement in the plot of _Bleach_, I'm going to be skimming through until I get to the point where Uryuu and Ryuuken meet again, and only covering the stuff important to Uryuu's character development. I haven't quite gotten to that point yet, but it will be soon.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>Uryuu bites his tongue to keep from grumbling to himself as he attempts to button up his coat. It's bad enough that just about everyone thinks him insane thanks to his being all but silent and highly unsociable, a member of the crafts club when the majority of the members are girls, and showing up to the school swathed in bandages. Picking up the habit of talking to himself isn't going to help matters at all.<p>

He'd left his coat tossed over the back of a sidewalk bench so that it wouldn't be torn or sprayed with blood while he killed the Hollow skulking around the trees. It might be cold outside tonight, but this is the only proper coat Uryuu has, and he doesn't want to ruin it.

It was that desire not to ruin his coat that led him to never getting around to taking the buttons out and putting on a zipper instead. Uryuu consulted several sources and none of them seem to be in agreement as to whether attempting to remove the buttons from his felt coat would ruin it, or as to whether a zipper could be successfully attached. He's decided not to take the chance. The buttons are large enough that usually getting them done isn't much of a problem, but tonight Uryuu's fingers are just too stiff to make buttons of _any _size anything but an irritation.

_Do__ buttons __exist __only __to __torment __me_? he wonders in frustration, finally managing to get the last one done up. Uryuu smoothes down his coat and looks over himself with a grimace. Pant legs crumpled, one of his hands bloodied (_I__'__d__ better __not __let __any __of __the __blood __get __on __my__ coat)_, and Uryuu is sure that in the face he looks wan and drawn and unbearably twitchy. God knows he _feels_ unbearably twitchy. _I__ hope __I__ don__'__t__ run __into __anyone __on __the __way__ home. __I __really __don__'__t __want __to __be __caught __looking __like __I__ expect __to __be__ attacked __at __any __moment._

"Hello."

And immediately, Uryuu betrays all feelings of tense nervousness by jumping off of the bench like an alarmed cat.

A slightly nervous giggle, not by any stretch of the word malicious but still rankling, follows this display of nerves and Uryuu's eyes snap to the source of the quiet, distinctly feminine giggle.

A thin girl stands on the sidewalk a few feet away. Her coat is, like his, a bit shabby, but Uryuu suspects that that's more to do with it having been in her possession for a long time, rather than it having been picked up secondhand at a consignment store. She has a rounded, friendly face, and wears an apologetic smile. "Sorry. I thought you knew I was there."

Uryuu's eyes narrow as he recognizes the long hair made scarlet and the hairpins glittering emerald green underneath the stark streetlamp light. This girl is one of his classmates—they're in the same club. Her name is Inoue-san, he thinks.

"It's alright," he mutters, pushing his glasses back up the bridge of his nose and looking away. Suddenly, Uryuu is glad he's wearing his coat over his white clothes. He'd rather "the kid who wears weird-looking clothes" was _not_ added to the things he can occasionally hear others whispering about him in the halls.

But no. Inoue-san's not like that. Uryuu can't really confess to knowing her well, but from what little he knows of her she's certainly not the sort to spread rumors or nasty gossip. She can generally be found chattering happily with her friends, talking about whatever it is teenage girls consider important. Still, he pulls his coat closer around him.

Maybe thirty seconds of silence pass before Inoue-san, deciding that Uryuu isn't going to be able to carry this pitiful excuse for a conversation on his own, speaks again. That sweet-natured, friendly smile is still affixed to her lips, and Uryuu wonders at how anyone can wear that smile for so long without it becoming anything but false. "You really shouldn't be out here by yourself this late at night, you know," Inoue-san remarks, tilting her head slightly to one side.

"You're one to talk," Uryuu points out before he can stop himself, and immediately berating himself for being unable to hold his tongue. _She__'__s__ just __trying __to __be __polite; __stop __it._ _It__'__s__ true, __though, _he tells himself. She's young, she's pretty, and she doesn't look like she'd be capable of hurting a fly. That's a prime target for any thug who wants money or skin.

If Inoue-san is offended by that blunt remark, she's very good at hiding her indignation. Her smile brightens and widens as she cheerfully explains, "I was just having dinner with a friend. It's not like anything bad ever happens to me."

Uryuu decides she's incredibly cheerful and entirely too trusting, and possibly lying as well. _What __if __I__ turned __out __to __be __someone __with __ill __intentions? __What __would __she __do __then?_

They fall back to silence, Inoue-san's smile shrinking just a little and Uryuu having no idea what to say, given that he's never had an extended conversation with one of his classmates before. _She__'__s__ just __being__ polite, _he repeats to himself, over and over. _She__'__s __just __being __polite._

"…same club?"

He looks up, frowning. _Great.__ What __did__ she __say?_ Hoping she can't see his face flushing in embarrassment, Uryuu asks, "I'm sorry, I didn't hear you. Could you repeat that?"

Inoue-san doesn't lose patience, but he can see her smile falter just a little more. "It's okay. I was just wondering. We're in the same club, aren't we?"

_Where __is __this __going? _"I think so," he answers, not without a hint of caution.

The young girl nods, having had it confirmed for herself, and goes on. "I just want to…" She seems to think better of it, and alters the course of her speech. "You don't always seem like you enjoy it very much. You're supposed to be the one in charge, but you never talk to anyone." An unspoken question hands in the air like an elephant in the living room.

Trying not to balk at the inquiry—_She__'__s __just __being __polite_—Uryuu does his best to give an answer that doesn't sound abrupt or unfriendly. "I wasn't going to join a club originally, but I was told that joining a club would look better on my credentials when I went to apply for college or for a job. The crafts club was the only thing that really stood out." _Since__ joining __the __book __club __would __require __me __to __actually __talk __to __people. _"I have no idea how I got to be in charge of that thing."

All told, it's the truth. Uryuu had not been looking to join a club, but eventually he succumbed to his advisor's admonitions of "Everyone's doing it; it's good preparation for the workforce; colleges and employers won't want you if you haven't been in a club, no matter how smart you are." _And __thus __does __individualism__ take __its __last __breath __before __dying__ on __the __altar __of __collectivism,_ Uryuu thought caustically as he reluctantly agreed to join a club. The crafts club really was the only thing that stood out; everything was either related to sports or would have required him to talk to people. Neither are acceptable.

He really doesn't know how he got to be in charge; Uryuu hadn't really been paying attention that day. Come to think of it, Uryuu does remember something about them having drawn straws; that may have been how he got to be in charge of the crafts club. As it is, he doesn't really carry the business of the day; one of the other students handles that while Uryuu tries his best to be invisible to the naked eye. _Inoue-san__ must __have __very __good __eyesight,__ then._

"Is that it?" A trill of good-natured amusement enters Inoue-san's voice, and Uryuu sports a small frown.

"Yes, it is."

Once again, they fall silent, a silence even more awkward then before, if that's possible. Inoue-san kicks at the pavement absently, and Uryuu fidgets with his sleeve cuff, wondering what time it is for the moonless sky to be pitch black and the stars to glitter so coldly.

"Is that blood?" Uryuu looks up at that slightly sharper tone to see that the smile has faded off of Inoue-san's face entirely, replaced instead with a brow heavily furrowed behind scanty bangs. Her eyes have zoned in on his right hand, still bleeding sluggishly.

Uryuu feels his face grow warm again. "It's nothing," he mutters, staring down at the sidewalk.

Too mild-mannered to argue with him on that point, Inoue-san merely motions towards a nearby building where Uryuu assumes she must live. "I have Band-Aids in my apartment. Do you want to come in?"

_So very trusting._

For a moment, Uryuu almost says "yes", that yes, he would like to come in and wash the dirt and blood off his hand. The thought of someone actually wanting him to come inside is as foreign as if he was overhearing a conversation between the two Korean immigrants in his apartment complex, chattering away in their native tongue. It's foreign, startling, bewildering, but he comes so close to saying "yes."

"Oh… Ah—No," Uryuu says, very quietly, looking away. "That's alright, Inoue-san." _She__'__s__ just __being __polite. __She__'__s __only __saying __that __to __be __polite. __Actually __coming __inside __would __be __an __imposition. __She __has __no__ reason __to _want _me __to __come __in; __she__'__s __just __being __polite._

"Are you sure?" Inoue-san asks uncertainly, taking the hem of her coat in her hands.

Uryuu tries to smile, but it's just a stiff quirk of one side of his mouth and it probably comes out more as a grimace. "I can handle it."

"Oh… Okay." Her voice is very small, clearly reluctant to leave him be. Inoue-san stares at him for a long moment, some strange emotion (_maybe__ worry_) swimming in her wide brown eyes, before she turns away and walks up the sidewalk towards her apartment building.

Pushing his glasses up his nose again, Uryuu does the same, going the opposite way and knowing he didn't feel this tired or this inadequate before he ran into her.


	134. 134: Requirements

**Title**: Requirements**  
>AN**: I've never met the qualifications for giving blood, so I'm not speaking from personal experience when I talk about blood drives. If I get anything wrong, please tell me so I can correct it. I do know, however, that they must not have been paying a great deal of attention if they let Uryuu inside.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>Since Uryuu entered the fifth grade, the arrival of the blood drive onto school property has been a biannual event, no matter what school he's in at the time. For one day, they'll set up shop in the gymnasium, letting it be known around the school that they are there and they are accepting anyone who wishes to give blood. Really, Uryuu doesn't know much about it, since he's never given blood himself.<p>

Just as the blood drive has come to his school twice a year since he entered the fifth grade, Uryuu has watched since then, avoiding the gymnasium on those days.

He's never really entertained the thought of giving blood. Uryuu doesn't know why at first, but on closer inspection he realizes that it probably has something to do with his tendency to avoid social situations. They'd all be a bunch of strangers, the people who set up the booths in the gymnasium, and he'd likely be expected to talk to the people there.

Also, though Uryuu has never participated in a blood drive, he knows what is entailed in getting blood drawn. It's not so much the thought of having a needle slipped beneath his skin as it is the thought of being engaged in extended physical contact with another human being that disturbs him; everyone else seems to think this skin-to-skin contact so normal, but to Uryuu it violates every rule he has for himself, puts him far and away from any possible state of comfort.

So Uryuu has avoided the blood drive and ignored the advertisements and announcements. _I __want __nothing __to __do __with __it, _he's told himself time and again, not meeting the eyes of the young man or woman from the Red Cross, waiting hopefully outside the gym.

In earlier years, Uryuu had an excuse—he was too young; the blood drives in elementary and junior high were only there for the staff, anyway. Once he started hunting Hollows, he had another excuse. _I__ lose __enough__ blood __when __a__ Hollow __slashes __me; __I __don__'__t __think __I__ need __to __be __losing __any __more __at __a __blood __drive. _He didn't need to be losing any more blood than he already had, and his arms are usually too thoroughly swathed in gauze bandages for a needle to get through anyway.

Uryuu does not advertise his aversion to blood drives for fear of being mocked for such a reason as "being scared of needles." It wouldn't be true—_How__ am __I __supposed __to __sew __and __knit __if __I__'__m__ scared __of __needles?_—but Uryuu knows it to be what most would assume. Even then, he'd rather it be assumed that he's afraid of needles than for anyone to learn why Uryuu _really _doesn't want to participate in the blood drive.

All the previous times were spent avoiding the blood drive altogether. This year, however, there's something different.

This time around, Uryuu's curious; that's not to say he wasn't curious before, but this is the first time he's really thought about the blood drive at any great length. _I__ haven__'__t __picked __up __on __a __Hollow __in __nearly __a __week,_ he admits, finishing up with the last question on his test.

Uryuu gets up to give the teacher his test, before sitting back down to think. _I__ haven__'__t __gotten __beaten __up __or __slashed __in __nearly __a __week; __I __haven__'__t __lost __blood __in __nearly __a __week. __If __there __was __any__ time __to __give __blood, __it __would __be __now.__ Besides, __I __want __to __see __how__ they __do __it, __and __I _don't _think__ the __Red __Cross__ allows__ spectators._

Blue eyes flicker to the clock on the wall, which reads _10:45_. He'll go to the gym during the lunch break, which with any luck should be soon.

_Now, I just have to avoid talking myself out of it._

-0-0-0-

The lunch break rolls around. Given that Uryuu hasn't managed to talk himself out of going to the gymnasium and giving blood, he finds himself nodding tersely to the woman from the Red Cross who stands outside, handing flyers out to anyone so unfortunate to make eye contact, and pushes open the double doors into the gym.

The gym looks different, covered in white plastic tarp, booths set up. A woman in a sweatshirt beckons to him with an outstretched hand, and Uryuu walks over to her booth.

"I'm assuming you're here because you want to give blood?" she asks briskly, a rough note to her voice. The woman, wearing a nametag on a lanyard that reads _Ishikawa_, has the distinct air of wishing she wasn't here. Uryuu wonders for a moment whether he shouldn't reconsider this.

"Yes ma'am, I am." _No__ use__ balking __because __the__ woman __drawing __my__ blood __would __clearly __rather __be __anywhere __else._

She reaches for a clipboard, pressing down on the end of a ballpoint pen. "Alright, I just have to ask some questions first."

By questions, Uryuu soon discovers that Ishikawa means to quiz him on his health. _Have__ you __been __sick __recently, __or __injured?__ Do __you __have __any __allergies __to __speak __of? __What__ is __your__ blood __type? _It all goes on for what seems an eternity, Uryuu growing hungrier by the second.

"Do you have anemia?" Ishikawa asks, never looking up from her clipboard.

"Yes ma'am," Uryuu answers cautiously, hands clenched on his knees.

At that, Uryuu knows he's said something wrong, because Ishikawa places her ballpoint pen back on the clipboard and stares at him sternly. "Why are you here then?" she asks testily.

"I'm… sorry?" Uryuu gazes at her blankly, resisting the urge to reach up to adjust his glasses.

"You can't give blood if you have anemia," Ishikawa explains, not without a hint of exasperation. More gently, she adds, "Bluntly put, you have unhealthy blood. We wouldn't be able to use it?"

_Oh__… __I __didn__'__t __know__ that. _Trying not to be offended at being told "you have unhealthy blood," Uryuu inquires after Ishikawa to satisfy something that's piqued his curiosity. "What would happen if I did give blood."

She shrugs. "My guess is you'd pass out before you got out of the gym."

_Oh._

Ishikawa suddenly frowns again, looking at him suspiciously. "And as a matter of fact, just how old are you?"

Uryuu tells her.

The tired-looking woman pinches her nose wearily. "Get out."

"I—"

"Get out."


	135. 135: Capes

**Title**: Capes**  
>AN**: Hi there.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>As he lays out the freshly-ironed dress on the kitchen table, Uryuu can't be sure what it is about him and women's clothing. It's just that, somehow, whenever he's called upon to repair other people's clothing, those "other people" more often than not turn out to be women, and Uryuu often finds himself mending all manner of dresses, blouses and skirts. Perhaps men just think it strange to bring their ripped clothes to a young boy instead of letting their wife or a "professional" handle it.<p>

It doesn't really matter; Uryuu gets more than enough practice with men's clothing repairing his own clothes. So long as someone's coming to him and he's able to both exercise his passion for sewing and line his pockets, Uryuu isn't going to complain. Complaining would scare away customers.

The dress he's laid out is short-sleeved, buttery yellow, and from its size it is seen to belong to a young girl, around ten, Uryuu would say. There is a long rip in the front of the skirt; it looks like the sort of thing that happens when someone's walking in a forest and their skirt gets caught on a branch. Uryuu smoothes out the cotton fabric and examines the rip pensively before pulling out a spool of yellow thread. The thread is close enough to matching the dress in shade that if the stitches are careful, no one ever need know the dress was damaged in the first place.

_She __was__ so __panicked __when __she __brought __it __here. _Needle slides seamlessly through firm cotton. _I__ don__'__t __want __to __disappoint __her __by __doing __a __bad __job._

Uryuu isn't sure at what point exactly he started to enjoy sewing.

At the outset, Uryuu's motivations for taking up needlework were not so pure as the simple pursuit of pleasure. What it was instead was a means to an end, to block out all the strangling voices, be that voice his own, Ryuuken's, or the voice of one long dead. It was an outlet, a coping method, and nothing more; Uryuu's sewing aped the characteristics of an appreciated, well-enjoyed hobby, but there was no truth to that sham.

When he took up the fine, thin sewing needle of the larger knitting needles, all Uryuu had been looking for at first was oblivion. Well, maybe not oblivion. Closer inspection of his motives leads to the conclusion that it was a sort of suspension of thought that he had been looking for. Engrossed in a task that, while not ridiculously difficult, was complicated enough that it demanded his undivided attention, Uryuu didn't have to think. He could find refuge from the reality of his situation, and for a little while ignore the increasingly glaring fact that his house was not a home, and that coldness and despair were seeping ever deeper into his bones.

But somewhere along the line, he started to enjoy it.

Maybe, Uryuu supposes, as he continues in earnest the process of repairing the lightweight summer dress, maybe, it had something to do with his leaving the house. A lot of things in his life that are different now have their source in Uryuu's leaving the house he lived in for thirteen years.

Though he would rather not admit it, nor even do so much as acknowledge the existence of the issue, Uryuu recognizes that he's still living deep in Ryuuken's shadow. He wonders about him, his health, wonders if he would approve of what Uryuu is doing now, and even knowing the answer to be "no", that knowledge still rankles. He hates himself for it, but he still wants the man's approval and, to some extent, still lives as though he expects to hear Ryuuken's voice snapping at him at any moment.

However, it's just the shadow that remains. The immediate peril is gone, and without needing a constant distraction from the reality of an empty life, the old excuses about the reason he sews no longer hold up.

_Granted,__ I__ do __still __feel __a __lot __calmer __when __I__'__m __sewing. __There__'__s __no__ denying __that. __But __it__' __s__not __like __I feel compelled to __pick __up __my __needle __every __time__ I __feel __stress. __Not __anymore_.

He's done with the dress, and Uryuu puts it back up with the other clothes. He told the girl she could come pick it up tomorrow; there's no need to call her to confirm, and Uryuu doesn't have her phone number anyway. There are more important things to be worrying about, anyways.

Given that the kitchen table is laden down with clothes either repaired or waiting for repairs, Uryuu moves to the futon couch to do his homework. He's been able to buy a few books from a secondhand store since coming here, and keeps his textbooks on the bookshelf with them when not in use. There's just a little more homework left to be done, and after that Uryuu can refocus his attention on the clothing he still needs to mend.

Speaking of clothing…

History books expose Uryuu to a lot of pictures he wouldn't otherwise see. They're focusing on Medieval Europe at the moment, the age of chivalry, courtly love, champions, and other things Uryuu knows to be only half truth and half romanticized fantasy. It's not like a history book sports a great many pictures, but there are enough there that he studies them with fascination.

The capes especially catch his eye. Uryuu is perfectly willing to admit that he has outdated tastes in fashion, but in his mind, it looks kinda cool. Of course, that's not why he wears one when he goes out hunting Hollows. Okay, maybe it's part of the reason, and Uryuu wants to make a fashion statement, but that's not all of it.

Quincy mostly do their hunting at night to avoid being spotted by someone who could make life difficult for them if they knew what they were doing. Even on a midsummer's night, it gets just a little chilly and those white clothes aren't exactly thick. Uryuu's grandfather wore a cloak to block out the cold, and Uryuu wears a cape. It does impede movement somewhat, but it's too warm out to wear a coat and Uryuu would rather not be shivering the whole way.

And of course, it's not like Uryuu's ever going to tell that to anyone. For now, there's not anyone to tell, and even if there was, he'd far rather them think he has weird tastes in fashion than let them know he gets cold at night.


	136. 136: Ichigo

**Title**: Ichigo**  
>AN**: Remember what I said a couple of chapters ago; upon hitting the canon manga, I'm only going to be skimming through up until the point where Uryuu runs into Ryuuken again. Also, I find this chapter more difficult to write, even more than chapter 72, which is saying something, and frankly kind of strange. Finally, forgive me if I get any details wrong.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>Grudges and guilt may not enter into conscious thought at all times, but from the time Uryuu formed both they've never really left. The grudge is more or less sublimated and half-forgotten, but however subtly, the guilt influences everything he does, why he just can't smile or even try to come to the point where he's willing to try to socialize with others, not normally. There's no reason to be smiling most days, and getting close to someone would inevitably lead to closer inspection of his past which would leave that someone convinced Uryuu's crazy and scrambling to get away from him. Uryuu would rather not take that sort of rejection, given that he likes to be thought of as a sane human being.<p>

No one's going to want to see past his skin anyway. Uryuu suspects that he isn't the sort of person most people would want for a friend in the first place; too quiet, too standoffish, too prone to hiding his painful lack of social experience with reserve. People like happiness and cheer in others, not someone who for all the world seems to be cold, unfriendly, and all around strange.

Guilt would probably sabotage everything, whether Uryuu wanted it to or not. Conversations about family would be stilted and terse, questions about hobbies answered in only the most unemotional of tones, and when he would be asked why he never smiles and why he hardly ever seems to put joy into anything, Uryuu wouldn't be able to answer. In the same way, he wouldn't be able to answer why he's always so tired, why he's constantly covered in bandages, and why he's fifteen and living on his own.

The more Uryuu looks at it, maybe it's not guilt that would mess things up quite so much as what guilt drove him to do, but it would still be the lingering guilt that would sabotage any relationship he tried to form. Gloomy realization of that fact (_and __cowardice, __he __reluctantly __acknowledges_) keeps him from trying to form relationships at all.

There's just too much to risk on it.

Now, grudges on the other hand, grudges are a whole other can of worms.

Uryuu could not fail to notice something strange about the new student in his homeroom and the transformation undergone by another; he'd have to have been blind not to notice something off about the both of them. The two also seem to be far more intimately acquainted than being classmates who have just met would allow, and given that Uryuu's never seen Kuchiki Rukia before and Kurosaki has had the same homeroom as him since the fifth grade, Uryuu doesn't think he could have known her. _I__ could __be __wrong, __but __they__'__re __not__ related, __if __she __had __lived __here __before __she __would __have __attended __one __of __the __schools, __and __I__'__ve __never __seen __her __before __now._

Perhaps oddly, or perhaps not, Uryuu does not at first realize that Kuchiki Rukia is a Shinigami. There is, after all, something very odd and subdued about her spiritual energy, sort of as though she's been drained of it and only the dregs remain. He only recognizes her as the _extremely_ petite, rather sheltered new student, who seems to have thoroughly bewitched at least half the class with her charm and gives off all sorts of odd signals whenever he looks at her.

The boy, Kurosaki Ichigo, gives off odd signals too. This is an especially strange case, for though Uryuu hasn't been around Rukia for very long, Ichigo he's been around since elementary school, and he wasn't like this until now. Granted, it's not like Uryuu knows him at all. The basis of Uryuu's acquaintance with pretty much everyone is them existing only on the periphery of his awareness, and Ichigo is no exception.

What Uryuu knows about Kurosaki Ichigo is that a lot of people look at him and think he must be a delinquent, since he has hair the sort of color accomplished when someone with naturally very dark hair tries to bleach it, and _of__ course_, no one but a delinquent would _ever_ want to bleach their hair. Given that Ichigo's eyebrows are just as orangey as his hair, Uryuu dismissed this notion almost as soon as he heard about it. Oh, and he consistently gets good grades too. That's the breadth of what Ishida Uryuu knows about Kurosaki Ichigo.

Uryuu watches them, eyes narrowed, struggling to figure out what it is about these two that strikes him as so odd. Uryuu curses his own relative inexperience with the world of the dead. All he's used to is Hollows; there could be any number of other types of spiritually sensitive beings out there, and Uryuu would never know it. Maybe if his training hadn't been cut off the way that it was…

Then, Uryuu remembers something his grandfather taught him, when he spots, by sheer chance, the red strands gathered all around the little girl.

"_Look for the red strands. Any other humanoid being will have white, but those of a Shinigami will be red. That's a sure sign."_

_That__'__s__ a __Shinigami, __then_? This will be the first time that Uryuu, as far as he knows, has ever so much as laid eyes on a Shinigami, which explains why he could not for the life of him figure out what seemed so different about Rukia and Ichigo. At first, nothing resembling strong emotion enters into his observations (Unless you count the sheer level of shock involved in the revelation that there is a Shinigami sitting in his _classroom_). Uryuu can't help but think that Rukia is quite a bit shorter than what he expected from a Shinigami. Then again, he was also under the impression that you had to be _dead _to be a Shinigami too, but unless there's something about Ichigo that he doesn't know and can't spot, apparently the boy somehow became a Shinigami without having to die first.

The only way to describe Uryuu's mindset when he first discovers that two of his classmates are Shinigami is numbness. Implications don't quite click for the first few minutes, as Uryuu continues on scribbling notes and, though he doesn't at first realize it, shrinking in his chair. The realization doesn't make connections easily with his emotions.

It might be reasonable to assume that the first emotion Uryuu feels once the realization sinks in and he's able to accept that there are Shinigami sitting not ten feet away from him is anger. Reasonable, but incorrect.

Fear hits him first instead, a vague, ill-defined fear, the sort of fear one experiences when they think something threatening is nearby, but can't confirm it, a rabbit expecting a wolf. If Uryuu is afraid, that fear is fueled by his grandfather's sparing descriptions of the war and his own at-times overactive imagination. Soken would likely tell him that these fears are mostly unwarranted, and indeed, Uryuu recognizes that neither of them seem to have any idea of who or what he is and that it's unlikely that he's going to be snatched out of his bed any time soon. The fear lingers, though, Uryuu not quite able to banish it.

Anger comes soon enough afterwards.

Uryuu has held fast to a grudge since he was eight years old, using resentment to mask his own considerable culpability in his grandfather's death. He didn't want others to see the guilt written so plainly on his skin and staining the palms of his hands red, so Uryuu concocted a hard, bitter grudge half-reality and half-sham. Yes, the Shinigami's inaction and indifference had contributed to Soken's death, but Uryuu had been there. He'd been there the whole time, watching, just watching, and in the absence of the Shinigami, it had been _Uryuu__'__s_ responsibility to do something to try to save his grandfather's life.

Knowing that he wouldn't be able to live with himself with just the thought that it had been completely his fault, the grudge against the Shinigami came into play. No, Uryuu hasn't thought about it constantly since the idea was first formulate. No, he hasn't constantly had Shinigami on the brain since his grandfather died. No one could call the life Uryuu has lived since then normal, but he had carried on in his own way, in his own rather stunted way, never for a moment giving thought to moving on but somewhat managing it anyways.

Until now.

Now, all of the issues and guilt even stronger than before come rushing back with one little realization, and Uryuu goes everywhere with a knot in his throat. He wrestles with the thought of confronting the two of them for what seems like an eternity, going back and forth from _"__Yes__" _to _"__No.__" _Finally, Uryuu settles on _"__Yes.__"_

_But __it__'__s _your _fault__ Sensei __died, _a small, nagging voice reminds him, tugging at the corners of his mind. _The __Shinigami __might __not __have __cared __enough__ to __even __try __to __help __but __you __just __stood __there __and __watched __instead __of __doing __anything. __For __all __you __know __the __Shinigami __might __have __been __willing __to__ lift __a __finger __to __help __if__ they__'__d __actually __been __there, __which __is __more __than __what __can __be __said __for __you._

He goes for it anyway, finds himself behaving a lot more unpleasantly—and recklessly—than usual, and afterwards, Uryuu spends more than one night lying awake in bed, staring up at the ceiling, before moving to the futon because his discomfort at sleeping in a room with no windows is acting up again.

There's still little sleep to be had, lost in thought.

Ichigo… Ichigo is strange, at least to Uryuu's eyes, given that he hasn't had the opportunity to meet too many people in the past; "different" might be a better word. _I __have __so __little __experience __with __people __that __I__'__m __not __entirely __sure __how __I__'__m __supposed __to __know __that __he__'__s__ "__different.__"_

Uryuu doesn't think that any of his peers have ever talked that way to him, behaved that way or treated him quite the way that Kurosaki Ichigo does, and he's not entirely sure he likes it. The bickering reminds him a little too much of Ryuuken, but there isn't the same distinctly predatory or vitriolic quality to Ichigo's comments that there was to Ryuuken's, so maybe Uryuu launches into the arguments with a little more eagerness. _This__ can__'__t __be __healthy. __I__ just __know__ it __can__'__t._

Uryuu doesn't know what to make of him. Ichigo isn't at all what he expected from a Shinigami, he's a powerhouse without really seeming to understand the implications of being a powerhouse, and Uryuu isn't entirely sure how to talk to him, so when he does so, he inevitably does so in the sort of way that's bound to come across as arrogant and unfriendly. That old safeguard against would-be bullies seems to be rebounding on him.

_I__ never __really __thought __I__'__d __be __interacting __this __way __with __a __Shinigami_. Uryuu had never given much thought to what Shinigami as individuals were like before now. His grandfather had assured him that they were "_just __people, __normal__ people __like __you __and __me__"__,_ but Uryuu had always seen them as a faceless, impassive organization. Other people had the Illuminati; Uryuu had the Shinigami. Now having met Shinigami for the first time, his impressions have been more than a little skewed, though he keeps up the grudge so that no one can see what roils beneath it.

What Uryuu doesn't recognize at first is genuine concern from the gruff, rather rude boy, at least not consciously. Subconsciously he does recognize it, which is probably why he rebuffs all of Ichigo's rather brusque attempts at, well… Uryuu isn't sure what to call it. He's not used to concern, still existing in the world where weakness is preyed on, and doesn't welcome concern because he can't see it as anything but a trap.

(He's still working out why on Earth he's even associating with Shinigami at all. That may be a conundrum for another night.)

Still, it's not unpleasant, the sensation of knowing that there's someone who actually notices he's there, even if Uryuu is loath to admit it. He stares up at the ceiling and frowns as silver washes of moonlight pour over his face, before closing his eyes and trying to get some sleep.

As with wondering why he would be associating with Shinigami at all, this is a riddle for another night.


	137. 137: Unexplained

**Title**: Unexplained**  
>AN**: Again, sorry if I screw up canon in any way. Also, since finals are coming up, don't expect anything from me for a while. Once Christmas break starts, I should be able to update more frequently.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>For the record, Uryuu really was at the crafts store tonight. There are nights, the quietest of nights, when he can't get to sleep no matter what he does. On these sorts of nights, if there are no Hollow out and about—a tussle with a Hollow would likely be more than enough to put him out—Uryuu sometimes ends up wandering aimlessly about the city. He lives in fear of becoming a pill popper (as far as sleeping pills go; he already takes painkillers more than any sane person would be comfortable with, but Uryuu likes to think he has a valid excuse), so Uryuu just walks around until he starts to get tired. Hopefully tonight won't be one of those nights when he's still wide awake at dawn.<p>

Uryuu likes that the craft store stays open all night, especially since he needs more white thread anyway. Of course, admitting that he's been to the craft store at this time of night is pretty embarrassing; the information more or less has to be dragged out of him and when he does admit it, he does so in such a way that it ends up sounding utterly false.

It's not like he's thinking of craft stores or thread or embarrassing truths anymore, though.

What Uryuu is doing is clinging desperately to the frayed edge of consciousness in a hazy world. What he's doing is trying to get back up, and failing. Screaming limbs refuse to cooperate, too weak to move.

He's never been laid out so easily before, not even the first time he faced a Hollow. It's a sickening realization to know just how weak he is in comparison to the two Shinigami, and still, Uryuu is trying to get up. He knows that it will be just the same think over and over again, but he's still trying to hang on to the waking world long enough to get up.

He has to. For Rukia, if no one else.

Stepping into the situation, Uryuu wasn't entirely sure why he was getting involved at all. If this was a matter between Rukia and the other two Shinigami, by all rights he ought to have stayed out of it. But then, Uryuu found himself stepping in anyway. The two Shinigami, one still and the other boisterous, both had an air of subtle menace about them, and Uryuu knew Rukia was in no condition to defend herself. He'd made his presence known without a second thought, and look now where it's landed him.

_Come __on, __you __have __to __get __up. _The ground beneath him is slippery with blood, and Uryuu can't get his hands to stay firmly on the ground to brace himself as he tries to get up. Every attempt to crawl to his feet meets with failure. _Why __can__'__t __I__ get __up?_

It had happened so fast; Uryuu could barely keep track of their movements before the blade slid over his flesh. The last thing he had seen before hitting the ground with a thud was a sword blade gleaming coldly in the lamplight overhead, dripping blood. _My__ blood, _he realized, as that blood squelched beneath him when he fell. He could not say with any certainty which one it was who held the sword.

Even now, Uryuu doesn't know why he did it. He's never been inclined towards heroics; Uryuu knows enough about himself and is honest enough with himself to know that his motives for killing Hollows are _anything _but heroic. Before now, Uryuu has only ever once been put in the situation of seeing someone being menaced by others, and if he's honest, he didn't think this would be the way he chose to react. Uryuu never pictured himself interceding on the behalf of the beleaguered. Especially not a Shinigami.

_Why __would __I __do__ something __like __that? __It__'__s __not __like __I__'__ve__ ever __stuck __my __neck __out __for __someone__ else __before. __And __for __a __Shinigami?__ I __never __imagined __that. __Maybe __I__'__m __suicidal, _Uryuu muses sarcastically. _God__ knows __I __have __to __have __been __to __have __picked __a __fight __with __two __Shinigami __at __once._

Maybe he's suicidal, maybe it's because Rukia's someone he knows, or maybe it's because some people have the natural instinct to protect someone smaller than themselves. None of these sounds plausible to Uryuu, but still, he'd stepped in on her behalf. Uryuu can't for the life of him figure out why. His motives make no sense to anyone, let alone himself; Rukia didn't even particularly seem to _want _him to help her, but he'd gone on ahead anyway.

_Why would I ever do that for someone? Why? When have I ever risked my life to help someone before?_

It doesn't matter in the end, though. No matter the reason Uryuu tried to help Rukia, he was too weak to do so. He just wasn't strong enough. Pride stings, but the truth is unavoidable. He wasn't strong enough to do anything.

_I__ hope __someone __comes __soon. _His legs aren't going to move; his arms won't come to life. Voices are further away, the lights dimmer. _I__ hope __someone __comes __soon._


	138. 138: Glove

**Title**: Glove**  
>AN**: I think this may as well apply to all future chapters: I try not to do anything that runs contrary to canon, so if there is anything that seems out of place, please tell me.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>They will, of course, be going after Rukia; that's very much a foregone conclusion, from the moment when Uryuu, still-bleeding but at least able to walk again, drags himself home that night. Further treatment from the strange man would have been mortifying, and Ichigo needs it far more than Uryuu anyways. Uryuu is used to having to treat his own wounds, and more importantly besides, he needs to think.<p>

For once, Uryuu wishes there was noise overhead or in the apartments adjacent to his, a television, a radio, the thundering of swift footsteps, anything. It's too quiet here; though exhausted, Uryuu can't find sleep, and the silence is devouring at the blackest corners of his mind. In the overwhelming silence, the truth is unavoidable. Sitting on the futon in the tiny living room, all the lights turned on, bandaged hand supporting his forehead, all he can do is think and replay the night's events in his mind.

He couldn't stop it. He couldn't do anything to help Rukia. He couldn't even get in a clean shot before being laid out, unable to get back up or even move, and frankly, Uryuu isn't even sure a "clean shot" would have given him any advantage at all.

_I__ couldn__'__t __do __anything.__ I __was __nothing __next __to __them. _Uryuu squeezes his eyes tightly shut and swallows hard. A vague sense of nausea bubbles in his stomach.

He has nothing resembling trouble against most Hollows. Hollows are creatures of instinct who rarely have any grasp of tactics or strategy. Uryuu can simply take a position some distance away from a Hollow and coldly pick it off like a sniper. Even if he finds himself in the situation of being uncomfortably close to a Hollow, Uryuu's steadily improving of hirenkyaku (improved enough that he no longer injures himself in the practice of it) usually keeps him from getting too badly hurt; he suspects that's what hirenkyaku was devised for in the first place.

Against Shinigami, however, all of Uryuu's experience and ability is useless. He might have had a chance if he'd taken up position some distance away and shot at them from there, but in doing that Uryuu ran the risk of hitting Rukia by accident, and even that might not have made any difference. The Shinigami moved so fast that, once they were able to trace his trajectory, they'd have found him and it would have just been the same story, except on a rooftop.

Uryuu loses his advantage against armed opponents at close range, but he might have been able to keep them from taking Rukia if he'd just been a little stronger. Ichigo had lost as well, but at least on his part it hadn't been a difference in strength, in raw power, so much as it had been a difference in experience. _I __hope __he__'__ll __be __alright. __I __can__'__t __believe __I__'__m __saying __this, __but __I __hope __he__'__ll __be __alright. __He__ didn__'__t __look __good __when __I __left._

Ichigo is lacking in experience; Uryuu doesn't have that excuse, at least not in his eyes. He was just too weak, plain and simple. _I__ couldn__'__t __do __anything. __They __swatted __me __away __like __I __was __a __fly._

Tired and aching, his bones screaming as they scrape together, Uryuu stands. His eyes, drooping but unable to hunt down sleep, scan his little apartment, resting on the bookcase and the cramped kitchen. One of the lights in the kitchen, shining down on the countertop from the base of a cabinet, flickers constantly. Never have these surrounding seemed quite so inadequate, so confining, or so limiting as they do now.

Painstakingly, he makes his way back towards his bedroom, turning off the lights one by one, gradually drowning the apartment in darkness. Uryuu stops only in the bathroom to tap out and swallow a couple of Tylenol tablets.

In his bedroom, Uryuu does not lie down on the twin bed with its thin mattress. Instead, he kneels down, ignoring the pain this action inspires, and takes an old, familiar box out from under the bed. His brow furrows.

_I wonder…_

-0-0-0-

Though he doesn't show it, Uryuu is genuinely sorry he had to brush off Orihime and Sado. However, it had to be done. For what Uryuu's doing, he can't afford to have any distractions, and he doesn't want to have to explain to them just what he's doing. Besides, a Quincy's arrows aren't something to be on someone a Quincy doesn't want to kill or at least seriously injure. All together in one place at the same time, Uryuu is afraid he'd only end up hurting them both. He needs to be alone for this.

Remembering what his grandfather had told him, Uryuu has found a secluded location where he's unlikely to be discovered by any nature lovers, armed with an old box and supplies to last him for a week. He stares around at the trees, at the sweet-smelling grass, and sighs and sits down.

Blue eyes stare long and hard at the box sitting on his lap.

Soken gave him this when he was six years old, making him promise to hold on to it "until you're ready". The Sanrei glove, a device utilized in the past by the Quincy to achieve a level of power that they did not already possess. Recalling what Soken had told him he needed to do in order for the glove to be effective, Uryuu can't restrain a grimace. Seven days spent in complete isolation is not going to be pleasant, something Uryuu realizes only with surprise. There was a day, not so long ago, when going a month without speaking to anyone wouldn't have been viewed as anything unusual for him. Uryuu doesn't handle isolation quite so well as he used to; that may present a problem in itself.

_I__'__ll__ just __have __to __muddle __through_.

Uryuu has no doubt they'll be going after Rukia. He doesn't know Ichigo very well, but he knows him well enough to know that he's not just going to let her be kidnapped and _remain_ kidnapped. Ichigo won't let that stand.

He's no use to them the way he is now. He's no use to anyone like this, too weak to stand for even a moment against a proper Shinigami. If Uryuu is to be of any use to anyone, he needs to be stronger. He has to be stronger.

_I__ have __to __do__ this. _Uryuu runs a pale hand over the top of the box, but doesn't open it, not at first. _I __have __to; __it__'__s __the __only __way __I __can __help __bring __Kuchiki-san __back. __Why __am__ I __hesitating? _Sucking in a deep breath, Uryuu opens the box and peers inside on its contents.

The glove is exactly the same as he remembers. Uryuu has only once before opened the box containing the Sanrei glove. The day Soken gave it to him, Uryuu opened it upon getting into his bedroom after getting home, sure that Ryuuken wasn't home. A six-year-old Uryuu had lifted the glove out of the box, finding it to be made of a light, fine, smooth fabric, but strangely heavy at the same time. It had seemed so big to his eyes, and Uryuu had carefully folded the glove back into the box before hiding the box in the space between his bookcase and the wall.

When he lifts the glove out of the box now, it still feels heavy despite being made of a fabric anyone would think to be lightweight, but Uryuu notices something else too. _It __must __fit __perfectly __now, _he realizes numbly, running his fingers over the fabric.

Soken had told him that, once he put it on, if he ever took it off, he would for a short time be possessed of a practically inhuman amount of power, but after that short time had passed, he would lose all of his abilities as a Quincy.

_I__ doubt __I__'__ll __ever __be __in __the__ position __to __need __to __do__ that, _Uryuu decides, sliding the fabric over bare flesh. The fit is as snug as he expected, heavy on his skin. Never once does it occur to him that this might be a bad idea, except to register that making it through the testing period is probably going to be even more difficult than he'd initially anticipated. _Better __get __started._

_I won't need to take it off. I'll make sure of that._


	139. 139: Know

**Title**: Know**  
>AN**: Just a sort-of breather episode. I realized I hadn't touched on what Ryuuken's doing during all of this in a long while, and thought I'd do something from his perspective. That and the fact that I do like to explore Ryuuken and Isshin's relationship, and the fact that they don't quite act the same way around each other as they do anyone else.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>Long walks are no problem for Ryuuken, though at the moment he is honestly wishing he'd thought to grab a pack of cigarettes and his lighter before leaving. He could use the drag off of a cigarette to alleviate the headache starting to pound in his right temple.<p>

_What exactly is going on?_

The shadows have grown long, the sun low on the horizon by the time he reaches the Kurosaki household. The heat is oppressive, but Ryuuken doesn't notice that. Instead, he spots a familiar figure sitting on the front stoop, surprisingly quiet, even subdued, and he supposes he should be grateful, since this gets knocking out of the way, but he stops anyway, frowning.

Ryuuken doesn't think that he and Isshin have had an extended conversation since the day of Masaki's funeral. Certainly, they've seen each other since then, spoken, but it's never been anything but stilted talk. Asking after each other's health, the health of the other's children, that sort of thing. Not proper conversation. They haven't had that in years, haven't really _spoken _in years. Ryuuken wouldn't hesitate with anyone else, but this is Isshin after all, and Isshin does sometimes get more emotional than Ryuuken would like; Ryuuken detests having to deal with Isshin when he's emotional.

_Since__ when __am __I __cowed __by __Isshin__'__s __tendency __to __become __over-emotional? _Ryuuken continues down the sidewalk towards Isshin, and stops in front of him, sporting a vague frown and narrowed eyes.

Isshin looks up at him. He tilts his head and frowns, squinting as though he doesn't at first recognize Ryuuken. Ryuuken resists the urge to snap that there's no way Isshin's forgotten who he is, since the hospital received a call asking for him from Isshin a few weeks ago, so he may as well drop the "I don't remember you" act. Finally, Isshin mutters "Haven't seen you in a while," in the sort of pointed tone that indicates that, in Isshin's eyes, Ryuuken would do better to at least call once in a while.

If Isshin wants him to feel guilty over not keeping up contact, Ryuuken refuses to rise to the bait. "I've been busy," he responds quietly, stuffing his hands in his pockets.

An indelicate snort hits the air. "You don't have to tell me that; you're _always _busy, aren't you, Ryuuken?"

No answer comes, and conversation falls flat. For reasons he doesn't understand, Ryuuken keeps putting off saying what he had come here to say in the first place. _I__'__d __far __rather __I__ know __what__'__s __going __on. __Why __hesitate __at __all? _Isshin almost certainly knows what's going on, and as much as he would likely lord it over Ryuuken for possessing knowledge he does not, asking Isshin is far better than the alternative (The alternative being asking Urahara).

"Sit down." Isshin nods to the space beside him on the stoop. "You stand so stiffly the wind's fit to carry you off."

Maybe sitting will make this conversation easier to have. Ryuuken goes to sit on the concrete besides Isshin, and winces when he realizes that this puts the setting sun directly on line of sight with his eyes. _How __can __he __sit __like __that __with__ the __sun __in __his __eyes? _Deciding that Isshin's squinting may not have been pretending not to know who he is so much as sun-blindness, Ryuuken dips his head downwards, eyes fixed on the sidewalk.

Isshin says nothing more, and Ryuuken supposes then that _this_ is the time for him to say something himself. "…You are aware that they're gone, aren't you?" he asks finally, coming to his reason for walking across town to Isshin's house. This is the only reason…

Well, maybe not the only reason. Courtesy is all fine and well, but there are other reasons to come see Isshin, reasons Ryuuken would rather not touch on. There's entirely too much pride in the man to openly admit to any other reasons he would have gone straight from home after work to Kurosaki Isshin's house.

"'Course I am." There's no rancor in Isshin's voice, but a note of incredulity all the same. "You think I wouldn't notice something like that?"

Even Ryuuken will admit that Isshin is observant enough (you don't have to be unintelligent to be an idiot and he doubts Isshin could have gotten through medical school if he was to the core every bit as buffoonish as he sometimes behaves) to have noticed his son leaving. However, Ryuuken wasn't sure if Isshin could still sense someone leaving the mortal plane. He just wanted to check.

Ryuuken nods, and turns his head to burn holes into the side of Isshin's skull. "Ah." He hesitates for a moment, before curiosity overcomes the preference of not being mocked. "For what purpose?" he inquires evenly.

Eyes widened, Isshin stares, agape, at his old friend (Or acquaintance, or quasi-enemy, depending on the circumstances). "You don't know?"

Ryuuken clamps his mouth tightly shut and does not answer. He sees no reason to dignify that blunt, rankling question with a response.

His silence is all the answer Isshin needs. For a few moments, Isshin is just… _speechless,_ (_Yes, __that__'__s __the __word_, Ryuuken supposes; _such __a __rare __occurrence_) not saying a word himself. Then, what Ryuuken wants least of all occurs. Slowly, very slowly, a wide, toothy grin unfurls across his perpetually unshaven face. "Hey, Ryuuken."

"What?" _I__ knew __I__ was __going __to __regret __this._

"I know something you don't know." A look of childish, absolutely _infuriating_ joy bubbles up in the other man's voice. "I know something you don't know," Isshin gloats, sing-song.

"_Isshin.__"_

Still holding just the barest hints of triumphant laughter, Isshin holds up his hands in a placatory fashion. "Okay, okay, calm down. I'll tell you." Putting on his best "I am a great storyteller" face, Isshin launches into an explanation. "My eldest, your kid and two of their friends have gone to Soul Society because a girl they met a few weeks back, a Shinigami, by the way, was taken back to Soul Society for execution, which admittedly is pretty damned harsh considering what it was she actually did." His face darkens. "Gotta wonder what the bureaucracy thinks they're doing."

Ryuuken hears little past "girl they met a few weeks back." _He__'__s __risking __his __neck __for __someone __he __hardly __knows?_" That _idiot_," he mutters, hunching his shoulders and reaching up to rub his forehead; his headache has by now fully graduated to migraine status.

_Complete __and __utter __fool. __Who __goes __to __those __sorts __of __lengths __for __someone __they __barely __know? __And __why __on __Earth __does __Uryuu __think__ he __should __be __risking __his __neck __over __a __Shinigami?__ He __must __know __that __Soul __Society __is __occupied __by __those __who __would __kill __him __without __a __second __thought __for __being __who __and __what __he __is. _Ryuuken glowers at the row of houses opposite him. _I__ can__'__t __say __I__'__m __surprised, __though. __It__'__s __hardly __as __though __Uryuu __has __ever __shown __much __in __the __way __of __common __sense. __He__'__s __just __behaving __true __to __form._

There is one thing, however, that does surprise Ryuuken. Uryuu has never socialized well; in fact, Ryuuken doesn't think Uryuu has _ever_ attempted to socialize with his peers, at least not willingly. The last time Ryuuken checked, Uryuu had no friends, no one he cared about, and no one who cared about him. The last time Ryuuken checked, Uryuu avoided other people like the plague. Obviously, something has changed.

_Not __a __good __change. __Certainly __not __a __good __change. __Now, __he__'__s __just __even __more __eager __to __throw __his __life __away __than __before. __And __I __have __to __wonder __if __they __even __show __the __same __sort __of __regard __for __him, __if __they __would __risk__ their __lives __for __him_.

"Why didn't you tell me your dad died?"

Broken from his contemplations by Isshin's half-caught question, Ryuuken turns back to look at him. Isshin is frowning now, an annoyed frown with brow heavily furrowed. "Could you repeat that?"

"Why didn't you tell me your dad died?" Though still annoyed, something that looks like concern flits across Isshin's eyes; Ryuuken looks away, not wanting to see it. "I had to hear it from Urahara."

"I don't see why it matters," Ryuuken responds bitingly, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. He doesn't want to talk about Soken. "That my father was going to die the way he did was a foregone conclusion from the start. When a foregone conclusion comes to pass, it's not worth talking about." That Isshin has changed the subject so quickly only proves to Ryuuken that he's treating this all as some sort of adventure; Ryuuken can't look at it the same way.

Isshin snorts again, just as indelicately as the first time, rolling his eyes. "You know, Ryuuken, you're really smart, but you're also really stupid about a lot of things. Ridiculous, too."

"'Ridiculous?'" The look Ryuuken shoots Isshin is one of disbelief. "'Ridiculous?' Isshin, are you aware that all of your children are named after fruit?"

The father is quick to defend his son. "Not Ichigo."

Ryuuken only raises his eyebrows knowingly. "Masaki named him, didn't she?" Masaki was a good person, extraordinarily good and kind (not to mention patient), but she was also just the sort of person who would think that naming her _son__ "_Ichigo" wasn't in any way inappropriate, even if his name wasn't written to mean "strawberry."

"Whatever."

They fall back to silence, and despite having done what he came to do, Ryuuken doesn't leave.

-0-0-0-

Ryuuken soon regrets not having left when he had the chance.

Maybe half an hour after they stop talking, one of Isshin's daughters pokes her head out of the front door, saying, "Dad? It's ready." At that, Isshin goes tearing back inside the house, and, much to Ryuuken's horror, he finds himself dragged inside by the elbow and deposited in the living room in front of the television set.

The Kurosaki family, in the absence of the eldest child, is gearing up to watch a _Doctor__ Who _marathon. Personally, Ryuuken has no use for British science-fiction, and would leave, but when he tried to Isshin barred the way out, and Ryuuken doesn't think he could get away with breaking Isshin's head open in front of his daughters. He goes back reluctantly and sits down.

Ryuuken gets a bit of a shock when he lays eyes on Yuzu (or at least the one he's assuming is Yuzu) going back and forth from the kitchen to check on the popcorn. She looks exactly as Masaki did at that age, albeit with shorter, straighter hair and lankier limbs. The young girl behaves much as her mother did at that age as well, sweet and nurturing, and at some points rather silly. It's like seeing a ghost.

Isshin and Yuzu love every minute of it, but Ryuuken is fairly certain they're just watching for the explosions. The acting is forced, mechanical, and the special effects? Not so great. Besides, it hasn't even been dubbed into Japanese; the only reason any of them have a clue what's going on is because Ryuuken and Isshin both have a fair grasp of English and the girls can read the subtitles.

And Ryuuken isn't alone in his lack of enthusiasm for the _scintillating_ adventures of a man with a leather jacket and a blonde with a hairstyle and fashion sense hearkening back to the 1980s.

The other one of Isshin's daughters, looking rather irritated with the whole thing, catches his eye and nods towards her family. "You know, if you left now," Karin remarks quietly, the faintest hint of a smirk playing over her lips, "I don't think either one of them would ever notice."

Come to mention it, Isshin and Yuzu do look quite engrossed with the television show; their eyes haven't left the screen for more than half an hour.

Ryuuken narrows his eyes and weighs his options. It doesn't take him long to decide what he would rather risk. Ryuuken gets up and leaves. He has to go to work tomorrow, and he'd rather sleep tonight.


	140. 140: Protect

**Title**: Protect**  
>AN**: Just a chapter featuring my two favorite characters. Well, it's that, and for me, an exercise in toning down my own shipping tendencies. Enjoy.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>Her self-deprecating words make him angry before he's fully aware of why they should make him angry in the first place. It doesn't matter if she's proclaiming herself to be useless, if she's saying she'll only slow everyone else down, or anything else; all of this is enough to make Uryuu angry.<p>

Orihime is… Orihime is… She's very gentle, and very sweet, and a little weird, but in an endearing way (and Uryuu can't complain about someone else's weirdness, considering what he's like himself); those are the words Uryuu settles on. Uryuu wouldn't have to know her very well to know that about her, and he's come to know Orihime significantly better than he used to in the past few days. This doesn't make her useless; not by a long shot. Whatever she may believe, being the person who can heal wounds as well as she can makes her a huge asset on any battlefield, and if Uryuu could find the words to tell her that in such a way that it didn't come across as hideously mercenary, he would make sure she knew that.

_Careful with how far you take that line of thought, _Uryuu reminds himself reluctantly. _It will get her in trouble. _No one should ever make the mistake of thinking that someone who can heal as well as Orihime can is worthless on a battlefield. But at the same time…

She's gentle. She's sweet. There are positive traits, charming things about her, but at the same time, Uryuu has to admit that Orihime isn't well-suited for combat. She's just too nice for fighting, too kind, too tender-hearted. Uryuu doesn't think that, if push came to shove, she wouldn't be capable of killing someone, even in self-defense. Pacifism and being unwilling to kill is fine and well under normal circumstances, but these aren't normal circumstances, and there are just battles where you can't afford to leave your opponent alive when you leave him behind you.

Even if Orihime wasn't unwilling to hurt or kill others in the defense of her own life, she's still new to combat, inexperienced. There are things battle-hardened fighters know about combat that can only come from experience, and Orihime has very little of that. Inexperience makes one over-confident of their abilities, reckless, all too willing to plunge in situations they would be better off to avoid. The combatants here are experienced and ruthless. They would soon realize her inexperience and exploit it, and that would be the end of Orihime. Uryuu will not see that happen. He'll die himself before he sees that happen.

A healer unwilling to kill should be kept away from the front lines and protected. Her role is no less important than that of the warrior, but it is a different role, and demands different things of her and those around her. Orihime has a place, but it's not where she'll be constantly targeted by those who want to take out the opposite side's medic. _It can't be helped, I suppose. I'll just have to make sure she doesn't get hurt. I'll just have to make sure she isn't put in the position where she has to choose between her own life and having to kill someone else._

It's odd, but it's not at all difficult to feel protective of Orihime, worrying over her. She'd been ridiculously trusting the night they first met, and though by now Uryuu doubts she's quite so naïve as he'd thought her then, he still gets the "innocent abroad" impression every time he talks with her.

_Maybe… Maybe it's because I want her to stay like that_.

When they first met, she'd surprised him. It had been a long time since Uryuu had encountered someone who genuinely wanted to help him, and for the motives for helping him not being completely self-serving. Uryuu suspects now that Ryuuken treated his injuries because the police would have frowned on a man letting his child exsanguinate on his living room couch. If Hayagawa and Yamashita showed concern over him, it was because Uryuu was Hayagawa's son's tutor, and because it wouldn't have looked good for Yamashita if one of her tenants was found dead.

(_Uryuu never thinks about the fact that Yamashita had a great deal to lose from giving an apartment to a minor who, quite frankly, never would have been able to pay the rent without Ryuuken's intervention; at any rate, she certainly wasn't going to gain anything from it. He's never really given a great deal of thought to her motives, her reasons for letting him have an apartment despite all the reasons that it would have been better to refuse him and send him on his way, and if he ever did, he would likely only be confused.)_

Orihime, on the other hand, had nothing to gain from offering him help, and everything to lose if it had turned out that Uryuu was some sort of lunatic with a weapon; she had, Uryuu muses, been banking on him being a decent person who wouldn't try to rob, kill, or do anything else to her upon being let into her apartment. Offers of assistance had been completely uncalculating, and though it was only for a few cuts, and even though Uryuu had ended up rejecting those offers of help, he hasn't forgotten.

Of course, Uryuu can't deny that he'd appreciated the fact that Orihime hadn't automatically assumed that, because he never spoke during club sessions, he was a freak. So Uryuu supposes that his motives for being protective of Orihime, wanting her to stay the sweet, innocent girl who offers help to others regardless of whether it advantages her, wanting her to stay the sort of person who doesn't judge people based on standoffish behavior, are extraordinarily selfish. They remain, however, and Uryuu doesn't suppose that at this point, anything could happen to persuade him _not _to be protective of Orihime.

Uryuu doesn't want to see Orihime cry, doesn't want to see the smile slip, doesn't want to see her grow cold and hard; that thought makes his stomach knot in pain, at the thought of something so full of life becoming dead. He guesses that, if he's completely honest, he doesn't her to end up like him. No one should have to end up like Uryuu, tired, wary, unable to form connections with others on their own because the pain of reality has proven too much to hold on to joy. His joy died long ago; hers doesn't have to. Orihime is too young, too innocent, too good to end up like him.

They're on their own out here, searching for an imprisoned girl (_almost like the princess locked away in the tower from fairy tales since time immemorial_), and skulk through dark alleyways in places where they will be killed if discovered.

Orihime won't kill. It's not in her nature to kill; Uryuu knows that. But there are so many people here who will try to kill her because of her ability to heal. So Uryuu guesses it's up to him. It's up to him to make sure Orihime doesn't get hurt, that she isn't put in the situation where she has to choose between her life and someone else's, because Uryuu knows the way Orihime would choose. This is what he keeps telling himself, that he'll have to fight for the both of them, because while in an ideal situation, she wouldn't be forced on to the front lines, this is far from being an ideal sort of situation. Her safety is his responsibility; no one is here to help him shoulder it. He's going to have to be the one who makes sure she comes out alright.

He think he can handle that. It is at once an enormous burden and no burden at all. To keep that sweet, bright, unaffected smile the way it is, Uryuu thinks he can handle the role of 'protector', however unused to it he may be.


	141. 141: Abattoir

**Title**: Abattoir**  
>AN**: Again, if I make any major canon screw-ups (major, not minor), please forgive me.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>Promises of painful, lingering death (more the implication than explicitly stated, but still quite present) to the Eleventh Division Shinigami if he doesn't take Orihime out of the line of fire and keep her safe are enough to have him running in the other direction, over Orihime's unmistakable objections. Uryuu can't bring himself to regret it, though. Friendly fire is the bane of those who fight in groups, and though Orihime is undoubtedly well-skilled at healing, Uryuu would rather she didn't have to test those abilities out on herself. Besides, Uryuu would rather Orihime wasn't around to witness what he plans to do to the Shinigami captain he now faces.<p>

Perhaps it's not the appropriate setting for these sorts of feelings, but Uryuu doesn't think he can bring himself to feel anything but disgust for a man who so willingly sacrifices his subordinates. On second thought, it's definitely not the right situation to be having these feelings. Those Shinigami dead are now Shinigami Uryuu will not have to worry about later. Those Shinigami, lying in bits and pieces all over the street and nearby buildings, are enemies that he and the others will not have to worry about anymore. At the same time, they were the man's subordinates, and he chose to display a total lack of caring for them by killing them appallingly.

A more immediate concern, however, is what this man—Kurotsuchi Mayuri, as he has introduced himself—keeps saying he's going to do to Uryuu and Orihime if he gets his hands on them. Personally, Uryuu keeps getting visions of this scenario ending with him in a labeled jar. Several jars, to be precise; he doesn't think Orihime would fare much better in that sort of situation.

Then comes the sword, and paralysis.

The next thing Uryuu knows, he's lying against a wall sporting a stinging, screaming wound on his chest, unable to move and reeling. He's still trying to get over the bursts of pain, the indignation at the way his opponent treats his lieutenant—_his__ daughter, __his __child?__ Even __one __he__ created __himself, __there__'__s __no __excuse __for __that treatment_—and the deepening realization that he knows _exactly_ where this is going.

_Great. I'm going to die like this? That's just wonderful._

Then, Mayuri starts talking again, talking of such things that draw Uryuu's attention away from thoughts of his own impending death.

Mayuri is the first Shinigami Uryuu has come across to know exactly what he is; he seems to be the first to know even what a Quincy is. The anonymity is at first a little rankling, but it doesn't take Uryuu long to decide that he likes it; that no one knows his abilities means no one knows what to expect when facing him, giving him an advantage, however fleeting. But this one knows him, knows exactly what to expect, and Uryuu couldn't do anything but go on the defensive. And even that wasn't enough.

And now…

Tales of experiments performed on captured subjects, of how a secret room was turned into an abattoir, gruesome deaths, horrible atrocities, torture by any other name. _Two __thousand __met __that __fate__… _Two thousand, Mayuri notes with relish, and all Quincy. The number repeats in Uryuu's mind, over and over again, leaving his stomach roiling.

_Two__ thousand__… __Killed__ by __fire, __by __water, __forced __to __kill __each __other__ with __their __own __hands. __Could __any __of__ them __have __been __family, __kin __to __me? __And __him__… __It __was __just __as __though __he __was __a __child __stomping __on __insects __or __crushing __a __frog. __They __didn__'__t __mean __anything __more __to __him __than __that; __he __just__ thought __of __them __as __animals, __or __maybe __not __even __with __that __level __of __regard. __All __of __that, __all __that __death, __all __that __suffering, __just __so __he __could __see __if __they __could __perform __one __certain__ technique_.

And even then, Uryuu does not at first try to get up. This, he tells himself, is how people fight. They rattle the nerves, try to get their opponent angry so their judgment will be clouded and their focus on their surroundings fail. _I__ won__'__t __fall __for __psychological __warfare;__ I__ won__'__t. _Still, the numbers ring in his head, and Uryuu has to swallow on his own fury. He never personally knew any of the dead Quincy Mayuri describes, but it's still so hard not to do more than curl his lip, just because of that tone he takes when describing them.

_You__'__d __think __he __was __describing __experimentation __on __animals,__ from __the __way __he __talks __about__ them_.

Just when Uryuu has finally regained full control over his temper and he thinks he might be able to get through this without anger guiding his each and every action, Mayuri goes on, and pulls something from the folds of his shihakusho.

The last Quincy he caught, according to Mayuri, was a "dirty old man." Apparently, he couldn't perform Ransoutengai either, much to Mayuri's irritation—_How __did __he__ even __figure __out __if __a __Quincy __could __perform __the __technique __in__ the __first __place?__ Did __he __just _ask _them,__ or __something? _Mayuri doesn't remember a great deal about this last one; _the__ details __of __his__ "__examinations__" __tend __to __run __together __in __memory. _He does not remember the man's name, only that he kept bringing up a child's name, over and over again.

_Oh__ please__… _The more Mayuri talks, the more Uryuu's stomach ties itself into hideous knots. _Please __let__ it __be __someone __else, __anyone __else. __Not __him; __please, __not __him._

It's a picture Mayuri is holding. He lets it flutter to the ground with a disinterested shrug so that Uryuu can look.

"…_not exactly intact."_

At first, Uryuu doesn't recognize what he's looking at as anything remotely human. Just a mass of mutilated flesh, abused and broken. Something played with unkindly until it broke. Uryuu looks at the picture's contents and all he can think that this, whatever it was, it looks like an animal after it's been gutted and drained of blood in an abattoir.

Then, Uryuu starts to see a face in this mound of flesh the picture shows. _It__'__s __a __human__ body__ after __all._ The features start to look familiar. _Wait__… __No.__ No__… _And Uryuu feels as though his heart will either hammer so hard that it finds his way out of a hole in his chest, or stop beating altogether.

The thing about nursing grudges and guilt for so long is that, eventually, Uryuu could no longer differentiate between the two. When he feels guilt, there is resentment there too; the opposite is true as well. Never are the two emotions separate from each other; these emotions come part and parcel of the same package. Thus are his feelings for the Shinigami represented.

Uryuu has had to live with the knowledge that he did nothing to stop his grandfather's death since he was eight years old. He's had to live with the knowledge that he could have done something and did not, that if he had done something, Soken might still be alive. Bitterness against the Shinigami can not compare to that stark, unshakable truth.

_This __is __how__ Sensei __ended __up? __Dead __again __on __a __lab__ table, __cut __open __like __a __frog __in __a __high__ school __biology __classroom. __Torn __apart __like__ an __animal __in __an __abattoir, __in __a __slaughterhouse. Debased, degraded. __Killed __like __an __animal. __And __for__ what_?

_And __the __one __who__ did __this __is __standing __right __in __front __of __me_…

For Uryuu, his grandfather had been everything. Parent, teacher, everything. The only person he could really rely on, one of the few people he has ever loved, and the only person Uryuu can be certain ever loved him. Losing him had been the unmaking of his world, and worse still, because he had stood there and watched, and done nothing. He's spent years hating himself for that, hating himself for his own weakness, knowing that for what he did, and what he did _not_ do, there was no way for him to seek forgiveness.

_This…_

But this, this is different. What befell Soken after his death is not Uryuu's fault (_or__ maybe __it __is; __maybe __it __is, __and __he__'__s __just __in __denial __for __now_), and the one responsible stands before him, taunting, mocking.

This was not his fault. That mangled heap of flesh had been someone Uryuu had loved once, and now, finally, there is someone he can hate without guilt diluting hate's force.

Uryuu does what Mayuri expects least, and stands. He does not care if Mayuri knowing that he can perform Ransoutengai, the first out of all of the Quincy he has encountered to be able to do so, makes him a more appealing target. The ability to perform this technique was hard-earned, and he will make good use of it now.

Drawing his bow, Uryuu looks down at the glove on his arm, and remembers what Soken had said. _If__ I __take __this __off, __I__ will __for __a __short __time __be __possessed of __a __great __deal __more __power __than __what __I__ have __now, __and __after __that, __I __will __lose __all __of __my__ abilities __as __a__ Quincy. __Is __it__ worth __it? _The knot in his throat and the blood roaring in his ears tell him that it is, with no regard for long-term consequences. They tell him that losing his powers is worth finally being able to take vengeance clean of guilt-stains on himself.

_I remember what you said to me once. You said that I could only really be a Quincy once I understood Ryuuken's heart, his motivations, why he had chosen the way he did. You said that I could only really be a Quincy once I had something to protect._

_I'm sorry, Sensei. I'm really, very sorry. I don't want to disobey you, but…_

_I__ don__'__t __understand __his __heart. __Nor __do __I__ know __what __I__ want __to __protect.__ Not __the __way __you __said __I __should. __But __I __do __know __what __is __unforgivable_.

His heart in his throat, Uryuu lets go of what he has for the sake of retribution, and the darkened street is awash with fiercely glowing light.


	142. 142: Parents

**Title**: Parents**  
>AN**: Just a sidebar; I'm touching on something I consider interesting from the Soul Society arc.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>It's only after he gets home that he really starts to think about it. The crisis has passed and Uryuu has time to wonder about small things. The implications of the loss of his abilities haven't really sunk in for him yet; that won't happen for a few more days. Instead, Uryuu lies awake in bed the first night, stares up at the ceiling, and thinks about other things.<p>

Rukia's safe. She's no longer under threat of execution, and hopefully will never be in such a position of danger again. There's that to be thankful for, at least. Yes, she stayed in the Soul Society, but she also needed time to heal, and that's her home to begin with. Not here. Not Karakura Town. And Ichigo doesn't need to mope about it either; Uryuu is sure she'll be back again. _I__ don__'__t __see __what __he__'__s __so __dejected __about_. Ichigo might not be dejected at all; Uryuu just suspects something resembling disappointment in Ichigo in reaction to the fact that Rukia decided to stay in the Soul Society. _It__'__s __not __like __he__'__ll __never __see __her __again._

Granted, Uryuu finds that, on some level, he misses Rukia as well. That's the most surprising thing, that he misses Rukia too. _Why,__ exactly? __I __barely __know __her. __I __doubt __she __misses __me __at __all, __and __why __should __she? I was just the strange kid with glasses who acted like he wasn't taking his anti-psychotics. _It's not a keen sense of missing her, not a sharp pain. Just a little nagging feeling that there is something not quite complete about the world around him. It's not something Uryuu has an easy time understanding.

He refuses to dwell on the fact that he's been cut off from his abilities; nor will Uryuu go towards the reason _why_ he ripped the Sanrei glove off in the first place. Soon, very soon, this will be all he can think about, to the point where he stops paying a great deal of attention in class and, for a short time, his grades drop because his mind is drifting elsewhere (Of course, most people wouldn't call drifting from A+ to A- anything resembling a real "drop", especially considering it only lasts two weeks, but to Uryuu, it is significant enough to be noticeable). Thinking about a photograph showcasing a mangled, all-too-familiar corpse and gleefully told stories of how a basement was turned into the slaughterhouse of an entire race will eat him alive; at least, that's what Uryuu tells him now.

In the days before Uryuu's resolve not to think about the most shattering revelations gleaned from his confrontation with the captain of the Twelfth division dissolves, he thinks about something else instead, something that happened during the battle with Mayuri that just keeps nagging at him.

Mayuri's irritation at the way Uryuu objected to his treatment of his daughter still rankles. _Why __do __you_ think _I __found __it __offensive?__ Anyone __with __anything __even __remotely __resembling __a __conscience, __however __stunted, __would __find __your __treatment __of __her __despicable. _There was something else Mayuri said as well, something that piques Uryuu's interest.

If Uryuu is to believe Mayuri—and though he doesn't like it, Uryuu supposes he doesn't have much of a choice but to take what the man says at face value; it's not like he has any other source of information on the matter—then Quincy often object to mistreatment of women, and other behavior deemed as anything but "chivalrous." This is certainly new to him, and though Uryuu hates the idea that he owes any of his knowledge of his own race to that race's butcher, it has to make him think.

Maybe he's just protective of women in general. It would, Uryuu supposes, explain why he stuck his neck out for Rukia, and why he was so dead-set on making sure Orihime got in and out of Soul Society in one piece, physically and psychologically. But given that he never knew that his people had a tendency towards that behavior in the first place, Uryuu suspects that's more something of his own personality that he's just now discovering and implementing in his own life. His grandfather focused on training, not dogma, having likely assumed there would be time later for such things; the most Uryuu had been taught in that area was to, if he could help it, always treat others with respect. There's no way Uryuu could have known that this is considered something of a racial trait.

And on that note, there are a few things Uryuu suspects, namely that any Quincy who started spouting things like that was likely doing so to annoy Mayuri. _It__ makes __sense; __at __that __point, __death __was __likely __seen__ as __inevitable __and __they __probably__ knew __it __wasn__'__t __going __to __be __pleasant,__ so __why __not __make __it __as __infuriating __for__ him __as __possible?_ That's not to say that these traits that Mayuri found so irritating in his Quincy "test subjects" were pure fiction; Uryuu simply suspects that they were exaggerated, either by Mayuri or by the Quincy unfortunate enough to find themselves in his basement.

_That's not all…_

Uryuu twists his thin bed sheets in his hands, the formerly smooth linens crumpling like paper under his fingers. He had hated having to leave her there, propped up on a wall after some extremely awkward maneuvering not helped by Uryuu's aversion to touch and the fact that there's virtually no difference in size between Uryuu and Kurotsuchi Nemu. Nemu was bound to find herself in a bad position for helping him, since it would have been clear that the only way Uryuu could have shaken off the effects of the poison was with her help. He couldn't have taken her with him, though (there was no time), and Uryuu doubts Nemu would have consented to go anywhere to start with.

_I still can't believe she helped me at all, even after I made it clear that the only reason her "father" was still alive was because I'd missed. I really was aiming for his head. I don't think I could have possibly made that any more clear than it was. And she still gave me the antidote…_

There is no denying that he'd found the way Nemu was treated by Mayuri, as cannon fodder, as a punching bag for the latter to take his frustrations out on, nothing short of repugnant. The more Uryuu thinks about it though, the more he thinks that his motivations for such emotions are more complex than what Mayuri implied. The more Uryuu thinks about it, the more he comes to believe that his anger was not just at seeing a woman treated that way, but at seeing a child so viciously mistreated by their parent.

_She __still __supports __him, __after __all __of __that._ Uryuu has some rather specific ideas of how a parent ought to treat their child. Verbal and physical abuse does not enter in to his ideas of what constitutes acceptable parenting methods. It never will.

It's hard not to remember especially dark moments in his childhood, and hard not to draw parallels. Uryuu does _not_ want to see any sign of himself in Kurotsuchi Nemu, does not want to face the thought that he is anything like the little girl with absolutely no way out. But he remembers. He remembers every day spent laboring in a shadow, looking for some sign of approval, remembers the bitter sting upon realizing it had only ever been a fantastical delusion, and he remembers what he'd been forced to do to find a way out himself.

Parents should love their children, should guide them. They should be the protectors of their children, not the ones who prey on them without mercy. They shouldn't be the ones who cause their children pain.

If this is habitual treatment, Uryuu knows he never had it half as bad as Nemu does. He at least had been under the "care" of someone who didn't actively try to put him in the hospital. It doesn't change the fact that the sight of a father mistreating his child still strikes a nerve, a deep, angry, bitter nerve.

After everything, Uryuu can't bring himself to turn a blind eye to it.


	143. 143: Helpless

**Title**: Helpless**  
>AN**: Here… Here, I am trying to explain, at least to my satisfaction, why Uryuu didn't choose to tell anyone that he had lost his powers. Again, I am sorry for any canon defilement.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>For a while, Uryuu is able to avoid thinking about it. For a while, he maintains a carefully constructed veneer of everything being just the way it was before he left for the Soul Society. The only thing out of place in his life right now is feeling a bit more fatigued than usual—Uryuu had remembered to bring his medication with him to the Soul Society, but he's guessing that something about the transition has thrown him off.<p>

Uryuu comes within a hairsbreadth of smiling at a certain recollection of the very first day. When he finally got back to his apartment, the sinking sun melting over his back, he was fumbling with his little gold key. He had just gotten the key into the lock when Daisuke had appeared out of thin air with a decidedly peevish _"__Where__ have __you __been?__"_, pestering him with incessant inquiries as to _why _Uryuu had been absent from his apartment for so long. A police interrogation likely wouldn't have been so pushy.

That vague suggestion of a smile shrivels and dies on Uryuu's pale face the way his hands pause over the eating utensils in front of him and food eaten turns to ash in his stomach when he remembers that he had brushed Daisuke off without a word. He isn't smiling anymore when he recalls that when he stepped inside his apartment, he had collapsed on the couch, unable to articulate a single thought beyond an all-encompassing awareness of helplessness.

Bringing mind to mental images of a flimsy photograph, depicting horror and blood, is still enough to make Uryuu's stomach burn with nausea. This wasn't the way he wanted to remember his grandfather, any more than a sultry summer's day soaked in blood and humming with blowflies had been. He hadn't wanted to remember his grandfather as the man devoured by a Hollow, and Uryuu hadn't wanted to remember Soken as the man opened up and taken apart on a gurney like an oversized lab rat.

_Pride__ goes __before __a __fall, __and __I __just __couldn__'__t __let __it __stand_.

Uryuu hadn't been able to just sit, listen and swallow down on the bile and ire rising in his throat at Mayuri's all-too-casual words. His airy account of brutal experiments and of bribing other Shinigami to let past Quincy be killed by Hollows struck nerve after nerve. This man was the reason Uryuu doesn't have an extended family. Even now, long after the fight that followed has become a fixture of the past, he can't stop himself from dwelling on the fact that, if not for Mayuri, he would likely have a much larger family than he does; frankly, he'd probably have a family _period_, if not for Mayuri.

Still knowing all too well that, in the absence of others, it had been on his shoulders to help his grandfather while he was still alive, the knowledge that the Shinigami who would have otherwise helped him may have been bribed to wash their hands of the situation doesn't help much to alleviate his guilt. After all, though Soken had made mention of having made contact with Shinigami, Uryuu knows well enough that there are only so many Shinigami and they can't be everywhere at once; they simply may not have known. The newfound knowledge does make Uryuu think, though, and the more he thinks, the sicker he feels and the more he wishes he had foregone supper this evening.

_How__ many __of __my __family __ended __up __sliced __to __ribbons __in __his __basement? _It's a reasonable concern. Among two thousand dead Quincy, Uryuu doubts that his grandfather was the only relative of his to be captured and "studied." _Other __members __of __my __family, __no __matter __how __far __down __the __line, __and __all __of __them __could __have __met __their __final __end __this __way, __bodies __abused__ until __they __could __take __no __more._

Never more than now does Uryuu wish he had had the courage to ask Ryuuken if his mother had been a Quincy as well, but at the same time, it's probably better that he doesn't know. Uryuu has good reason to know that Hollows don't limit their pretty to just Quincy and Shinigami; his mother wouldn't have had to be either to have been killed by a Hollow. But somehow, though he never knew her, the suggestion that his mother eventually found herself in Mayuri's clandestine labs is every inch as horrifying as the knowledge that his grandfather _did_.

And what Uryuu had done when he had learned of all this, when he had been confronted with taunts, threats and a photo, he has lived to regret.

He sighs and looks down at the plate of warmed-up leftovers from the night before. It's all stone cold now and Uryuu doesn't think he could eat any more of it. With a weary flourish of the hand, Uryuu scrapes the leftovers back into the box he'd brought them home in, replaces the box in the refrigerator, and goes to sit on the futon couch. The pelting of rapid feet against the second storey floor makes a glass on the drying rack rattle, but to Uryuu, he may as well be surrounded by stone cold silence, without another human being in all the world.

_It__'__s __like __the __idiocy __of __severing __a __limb __when __it__'__s __perfectly __healthy __and __there__'__s __no __need __to __be __rid __of __it._ On the subject of having attempted to kill Mayuri, Uryuu's only regret was that the poison clouding his aim had made him miss, and he'd gotten the man in the chest instead of the head. If it was convenient to him, if he had the opportunity and more importantly, the means, Uryuu suspects he would likely try to kill Mayuri again the next time he saw him (If he ever saw him again).

That's just the thing. He _doesn__'__t _have the means. Not anymore. _Such__ a __fool. _He couldn't even kill the man who had butchered his grandfather and two thousand others of his race, and just to try, he'd given up all of his abilities as a Quincy. _Everything __that __gave __me __purpose __in __life, __and __I __just __threw __it __away. __And __for__ what? __I __couldn__'__t __even __kill __him,__ in __the __end. __And __now __what? __What __do __I __do__ now?_

Uryuu has no access to his spiritual abilities. The most he has now is the silver ginto tubes he found in the strong box he had salvaged from his grandfather's house (After getting bolt cutters to break the padlock). Those won't last forever, and when he uses them all, there won't be anything left.

There's something else. Though he can still see spirits and Hollows (and Uryuu suspects he can still see Shinigami as well, but hasn't run into one since returning to the mortal plane), the outlines are a bit… _fuzzy. _Uryuu doesn't sense from as far away as he used to be able to, and he's already been accosted by Hollows at least twice, and forced to run. Nothing short of humiliation meets the knowledge that yes, he has had to _run _from Hollows, the creatures he once cut down indiscriminately. Uryuu is considering starting to carry ginto tubes on his person at all time (thanking whatever higher power gave him the presence of mind to fill them while he still could), but when those run out, he's not sure what he's going to do. He's never been more vulnerable than he is now, and he _can__'__t_ rely on others to protect him.

"_What's wrong?"_

_Orihime__ corners __him __after __school, __stopping __on __the __sidewalk __in __front __of __him__ and __frowning. __There__'__s __only __concern __on __her __open, __guileless __face, __and __a __look __of __determination __attempting __to __overcome__ her __inoffensive __nature_.

_Uryuu's eyes hit the ground immediately. "I don't know what you're talking about, Inoue-san." He tries to step around her, but Orihime blocks the path and, given that the sidewalk is walled on one side and the only alternative is to walk on a busy road, Uryuu doesn't have much of a choice but to stop in front of her; he's none too keen on the option of simply pushing her out of the way, no matter how easy it would be. With a great deal of reluctance, he lifts his eyes to meet hers. The sparks of worry in her deep brown eyes are somehow shaming._

"_You__'__ve__ been __acting__ oddly,__" __she __points __out __gently. __Uryuu __can__'__t __help __but __think __that __Orihime __is __probably __one __of__ the__ few__ people __on __Earth actually __able __to __differentiate __between __what, __for __Uryuu,__ is__ "__normal__" __and__ "__odd__" __behavior. _How did she even get a baseline?

"_Like you don't feel well," Orihime goes on. She tilts her head, leading to a bit of stray hair falling in her face and catching the sunlight. "You have been ever since we…" she pauses awkwardly "…since we got back. Well, maybe a little before then. I thought you might be sick, but people don't usually come to school when they get sick."_

_Perhaps __Orihime __is __just __too __sheltered __to __realize __it, __or __maybe __she__ assumes __that __everyone __in __the __world __is __sensible __enough __to __at __least __take __decent __care __of __their __health, __but __not __everyone __is __in __the __position __to __be __able __to __stay home__ from __work __or __school __when __they __get__ sick. __Uryuu __can__'__t __stay __away __from __school __when __he __gets __sick; __he __doesn__'__t __have __access __to __a __caretaker __who __would __be __willing __to __write __him __a __sick __note, __and __without __one, __and __without__ the __funds required __to __go __see __a __doctor, __Uryuu __can __guess __that __he__ would __likely __be __taken __for __skipping __school_.

_The __sun __is __entirely __too mercilessly __hot __on__ Uryuu__'__s thin __skin __and __he __can __feel __his __face __growing __just __a __touch __warm.__ "__I__'__m__ perfectly __well, __Inoue-san,__" __he__ mumbles, __forcing __himself__ to __maintain __eye __contact __with __her. __He __doesn__'__t __particularly __like __to __lie __to __anyone,__ but __somehow __it__'__s __worse __to __lie __to __Orihime, __if __only__ because __she __is __so __open __and __honest __as __a __person. _Fine way to repay that honesty.

_Her frown deepens. "Ishida-kun…"_

"_Really."_

_Orihime__ bites __her __lip, __a__ mortifyingly __compassionate __look __writing __itself __onto __her __face in painfully clear black letters.__ "__I __will __listen,__ you __know. __Whatever __it __is__… __Whatever __it __is, __it __can__'__t __be __so __bad __that __you__ can__'__t __talk __about __it __with _anyone._"_

"_I'm fine, Inoue-san," Uryuu repeats quietly. "Perfectly fine. Thank you..." He nearly chokes on his words, throat growing tight and hot "...thank you for your concern," he manages, just wishing so much that she would stop looking at him with those kind eyes._ You don't know. You can't know. _"But I assure you. There's nothing wrong with me."_

_She doesn't look convinced—far from it. All the same, unwilling and too respectful of his privacy to pry, Orihime lets him go._

Orihime is the only one who's noticed anything off about him. Well, if anyone else has noticed, they certainly aren't saying anything. Uryuu doesn't expect much from Sado, given that they don't really know each other very well at all, and Ichigo doesn't strike Uryuu as the sort to go asking close questions when he notices these things. However, when Uryuu thinks about the fact that neither of them, especially Ichigo, has bothered to ask why his spiritual pressure has suddenly become suppressed, and that they possibly haven't even noticed, his emotions are far from the relief he expected to feel. _Since __when __do __I__ care __if __others __care __about __me?_

The prospect of being forgotten, of fading away into the background and the shadows, of going back to being a blip on everyone's radar just as he used to be, is far more painful than what Uryuu had anticipated. He gets the nasty suspicion that, as far as this goes, he's shot himself in the foot, so to speak; Uryuu is secretive by nature, and so withdrawn that the average observer likely wouldn't notice if anything was wrong.

It may be better that only Orihime, easily the most accepting of the group, has caught inklings of a change in him. Uryuu is of no use to anyone right now, and he can't, he just _can__'__t_ let anyone find out that he no longer has any access to his powers. Whatever "relationship" he has with them is based on being an ally in battle. If they are to discover that he can't fight anymore…

_Relationship are built on convenience to both parties. This is how it's always been. But since when does it matter to me what these people think of me?_ And the one in particular whom he's concerned about... _Since when do I care __what _he _thinks of me?_

Uryuu reaches up to rub his eyes, his glasses sliding from his nose in the process, falling to the floor with a small clatter. This is a horrific position to be trapped in, and he's been entangled in the web by his own hand.

_No powers, no weapons, no nothing. Just ginto tubes that I'll have to use eventually, likely to defend myself from the Hollows that still come even though my reiatsu has been suppressed as a reaction to the removal of the Sanrei glove._

He's of no use to anyone, and the man whom he sacrificed all of this to kill is still alive, unrestricted. Uryuu has lived his whole life since learning of the war looking over his shoulder for Shinigami, he still does, and Mayuri can go about his business without a care in the world. Uryuu doubts that anyone would listen if he told him what Mayuri had disclosed.

If Mayuri really has been bribing Shinigami to withhold help from past Quincy, then that means that the higher-ups likely had some idea of what was going on in Mayuri's basement; those capable of being bribed by one are more than capable of being bribed by others. His judgment, his calculations, they tell him that the higher-ups knew something of what was going on, and chose to do nothing about it, looking the other way and allowed it to happen. They had likely assumed that if someone was to cull the last of the Quincy and get rid of their "pest problem" for them, they weren't about to complain. That's the way of the world, it won't change any time soon, and there's nothing Uryuu can say that would get their attention, much less garner their sympathy.

_I__ doubt __that __this __is __what__ Sensei __would __have __wanted. I know this isn't what he would have wanted._Uryuu does not regret having attempted to avenge his grandfather's bloody second death. He does regret, however, that he had gambled away his powers in an ultimately unsuccessful bid to kill the Shinigami captain. _Foolish, __so __foolish. __It__ wasn__'__t __worth __giving __up __my __powers. __It __wasn__'__t __worth __losing __everything __that __gave __me __something __resembling __purpose, and risking everything I've gained. If I had taken five seconds to think it through, I would have realized that.  
><em>

Desperate to escape the encroaching blackness and the silence of an empty house, Uryuu had taken up the mantle of hunting Hollows trying to stave off his own guilt. He couldn't bear to see all the empty places in his own life, so he tried to fill them with killing Hollows. And it had worked. When Uryuu hunted Hollows, inserted himself into the world of the supernatural, he didn't have to think about everything that happened to him. Despite all the risk and dangers such a life had entailed, it had given him some measure of peace, and he had met people who could actually stand to talk to him and be around him in the process.

Now, he has none of that. The one thing that gave him direction is gone. He can't afford to let anyone know what's happened, and when the inevitable day comes that he is found out, Uryuu takes no joy in contemplating what will likely happen between him and the others. Uryuu is starting to experience difficulty even _seeing_ spirits, and he gets the horrible suspicion that this isn't going to get any better over time.

His glasses, lying forgotten on the floor, glint in the overhead light, and for once, Uryuu doesn't notice. He doesn't reach to put them back on as he always has when they've fallen off in the past. For one moment, Uryuu can believe that, if his eyes are blurred and the world is rocked out of focus, he can avoid the reality of his situation. But that moment of insanity passes all too quickly, and he is confronted with the insistent, unavoidable reality of the way the walls close in on him in this new, constricted life.

He's never been less sure of his own future than he is now, and the worst part by far is the knowledge that he brought this all on himself.


	144. 144: Window

**Title**: Window**  
>AN**: A bit of foreshadowing.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>Coming to a sharp, piercing beep upon finishing, Uryuu takes the thermometer from his mouth and sighs. The screen reads <em>101.2<em>, a damning sentence. It's certainly not anything aside from what he expected; he's had the chills all day, a sign Uryuu has become all too aware usually spells out _'__fever__'__. _At the same time, he doesn't want to be sick. Not again. Not so soon after the last time.

Shivering, pulling his jacket closer about his bony shoulders and scrawny form, Uryuu trudges back to the living room, where he huddles under the flimsy quilt thrown carelessly over the futon, which has been pulled out flat. He hadn't been willing to do anything resembling settling down or even checking his temperature until after his homework was done; if he'd seen this verdict before then, he might have lost the motivation needed to complete it. Uryuu slides his glasses down the bridge of his nose, putting them on the armrest nearest his head beside a glass of water and a bottle of Tylenol. He feels like he's been walking through the thickest of fogbanks all day, his throat feeling much the same as violin strings far too taut. Nothing seems quite so welcoming as the dark brown upholstery of the futon does now.

It doesn't really worry Uryuu that he's sick again. He's spent half of his life recovering from fevers, small ills and sometimes not so small ills. Entirely too accustomed to laboring under colds, that he has once again found himself under the weather is unsurprising. As he sits up in bed to gulp down water to soothe his cracked and aching throat, Uryuu starts to think.

While certainly true that he's often ill to begin with, he has been getting sick a lot lately. _This__ isn__'__t __the __first __time __something__ like __this __has __happened. _Uryuu shakes the glass of water a little, watching as silver moonlight finding its way inside out from under the shut curtains catches on the ice cubes from the ice tray in his freezer, glimmering dully. _I __seem __to __have __the __polar __ice__ caps floating __in __my__ water __glass. _Reining in his train of thought, he stares out the small crack in the curtains, giving just a hint of the tapestry of the warm, wet, muggy night beyond.

What Uryuu has noticed is that, when he gets sick a great many times within a short period of time, it has usually followed an event of note in his life. One such event was the death of his grandfather; he got sick quite often for the first few months after Soken was killed, sick with little colds and lingering fevers that would make Ryuuken shake his head wearily as he went to fetch the thermometer, a couple of pills and a glass of water. Another was after he started to hunt Hollows.

Uryuu can't deny that the diagnosis of anemia wasn't one he was particularly happy with. Once he had gotten over the initial curiosity, he'd started to remember the way characters considered "sickly" tended to get shafted in the books he read. A "sickly" character, a character with any sort of chronic medical ailment, no matter how trifling the ill, could certainly be the friend and support of the hero. They could be a valued friend and confidant, but when the plot heated up and things got tense, the "sickly" character was always left by the wayside, kept out of the loop, underestimated, discounted, forgotten. Uryuu didn't like to think that he could be in any way associated with the characters who, through no fault of their own, were tossed to the curb, and simply told that they couldn't do anything at all.

In some sense of the word, this feels like the bout of illness that came after his grandfather's death, like the bout that came after he started hunting Hollows. In the case of the latter, taking iron supplements was surprisingly helpful. This is similar, but not quite the same.

Ever since he returned from the Soul Society, Uryuu has had the pall of lethargy resting on his shoulders like cobwebs. He's felt tired, dull, run-down. Half of the time all he wants to do is sleep, and in the other half, it's a struggle to stay alert and to focus on anything. And there are the small illnesses, like the fact that half of the days he's lived out since returning from the spiritual plane, the thermometer has read a higher temperature than what is normally considered healthy for a human being.

He feels… heavy, and experiences some strange sensation. Uryuu can't put his finger on any particular word, isn't sure what to term it; the closest he can come to giving a name to what he feels is the suspicion of slowly losing something. He grimaces and runs his finger over the rim of the glass languidly, wetting his skin with the water lingering there.

Uryuu's ability to see spirits and Hollows has not recovered. He can still see them, but it's still like standing in an old building and staring out at the world through a grimy, dingy, warped little window—nothing can be seen with clarity, and it takes a moment to recognize what he's seeing at all. It seems to be getting worse, not quickly, but slowly, so agonizingly slowly. Just a little harder to see, just a little harder to hear, that world edging further and further away from him with each day.

_But __that _is _my__ world. __It__'__s __the__ world __I__'__ve__ lived __in __my__ whole __life. __I__'__ve __never __known __anything __different. __How __can __I __possibly __live __in __any __other __world?__ How __can __I?_

It's not the same feeling he gets now. Instead, it's a sense of losing something that he simply can not place. Uryuu feels like he should be frightened of it, whatever it is, but without more knowledge, he simply can not bring himself to that state. He can only wonder numbly when this will all be over, and when the world around him will make up Its mind about what It wants to do with him.

As for the fevers, Uryuu is more resigned than worried. After all, he's used to being sick. For this one, it will likely be gone by the morning, or at least lowered to something more manageable, like 99 degrees. It's Saturday tomorrow, anyways; with any luck, he'll be completely recovered by the time he has to go back to school. _Just __in __time __to __get __another __fever __by __Wednesday. __Joy._

Tired and drooping, feeling all over like his bones are made of lead, Uryuu lays down, a strip of hazy moonlight falling over his face from the window, and tries to put any worries from his mind.


	145. 145: Offers

**Title**: Offers**  
>AN**: For some reason, I just like the idea of writing Urahara+Uryuu interactions. That's probably why I wrote the oneshot _Battle Scars. _However, up until now I haven't had any opportunity to do so within the context of _Entropy_. Also, I made a couple of small references to another manga I'm familiar with. Sorry if it's a bit cheesy. Merry Christmas, everyone (or Happy Holidays, if you so prefer).**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>The surface of the dark water is ruffled with little currents of wind, buffeting what would normally be a mirror to little watery hills. A lonely bird lets out a raucous shriek below the docks, its wings slapping at the water as it flies away, low over the surface of the river. The small amount of wind is not enough to erase the fact that this is a wonderfully mild night, the higurashi cicada's "kana-kana-kana" echoing in the quiet dark.<p>

Walking down the old docks, thankfully devoid of anyone who could eavesdrop on the conversation bound to follow, Urahara spots a familiar figure standing with his elbows propped on the railing, balancing something in long, spindly fingers. _There he is. _Fastening on his most disarming smile (he'll need it, considering who he's going to talk to), he straightens his hat and steps forward.

"Fancy meeting you here, Ishida-san."

Uryuu looks up sharply at the cheery greeting, first showing himself to be startled and then letting slip a flicker of annoyance, most likely at himself for not noticing Urahara approaching. A split-second later, annoyance is replaced by wariness, and he reaches to tuck the item in his hands in his school bag; he doesn't seem to have gone home since leaving school, despite the late hour.

Though Urahara has no doubt that Uryuu would rather he hadn't been able to see what he was absently twirling through his fingers, before he thinks to conceal the object in his bag, Urahara has enough time to figure out what it is the young boy has with him.

A thin, silver cylindrical tube, positively pulsating with spirit energy. As Urahara realizes exactly what is it, he, with little true effort, suppresses the urge to knit his eyebrows together. _A ginto tube? _That doesn't make a great deal of sense. Urahara's memory does not deceive him; Uryuu would have been too young when his grandfather died for the old man to have taught him any ginto. _I suppose he could have taught himself, _Urahara allows. _He certainly wouldn't be the first Quincy I've met who taught himself techniques like that. But even so, if Ishida-san is self-taught at ginto, then he can't possibly be very good at it._

Rousing himself out of his own contemplations, Urahara's smile never breaks as he asks, "Is that what I think it is?" He lets just a hint of the disbelieving flavor his voice, despite knowing quite well what Uryuu just hid in his bag. He's come looking for Uryuu for a reason, and needs a way to transition naturally into that train of conversation. There's only one reason Uryuu, in the state that he's in, would be carrying ginto tubes in his school bag; that very well could be the way to lead in to the conversation, if Uryuu will just take the bait.

Alas, he is noncommittal at best, too vague to lead anywhere. "Quite possibly," Uryuu answers shortly, not meeting his eyes. Apparently Urahara is standing too close to him for his liking, because he edges away from him, shoulders stiffening. Urahara gets the impression that he would leave, except that Uryuu's stiff, uncomfortable body language loudly screams "_I really don't want to be here if you're here, but I'm not going to let you scare me off."_

_I'm not the one you ought to be ought to have that sort of reaction to. _It's patently obvious that Uryuu is a wary child; that, Urahara suspects, owes a great deal to the boy's upbringing and especially to certain unpleasant past experiences. The Quincy on a whole, back when there were still any number of them left, were a skittish race. The war with the Shinigami did _not _help matters; after that, the Quincy clans that survived the war of extermination leveled against them kept to themselves even more than ever, moving to different parts of the world and changing their names. It's not hard to come to the conclusion that they would have done anything to keep the eyes of the Shinigami off of them after a massacre thinly veiled as a war. Urahara supposes Uryuu could just be wary of him on principle, him being a Shinigami, but there are other Shinigami he associates with whom he doesn't show any sign of being nervous or watchful around. It's more likely to be Uryuu's reaction to someone he thinks of as "shady" than anything else.

_I don't know what it is about my behavior or my personality that could possibly make anyone wary of me. Well, I suppose there are a few things…_

There are a few minutes of thick, uncomfortable silence in which the higurashi's cries seem louder and more penetrating than ever. Uryuu seems to be doing his best not to acknowledge that Urahara is there, staring out on the night-darkened river with slightly glazed eyes; he also seems to think that Urahara hasn't noticed the way he sneaks sideways glances at him exactly every seven seconds.

Thanks to the gift of gab on Urahara's part, the silence is not maintained for long. "Ever wonder what happens when you try to trace back those cicadas to where you hear them coming from?" Allowing his mouth to twist in a slightly rueful smile, Urahara hopes that the relatively good manners that he knows Uryuu has will keep him from ignoring that admittedly rather inane attempt at opening a dialogue.

Sure enough, Urahara is gratified to see a flicker of interest pass over Uryuu's pale, narrow face in spite of himself. He looks at him out of one eye, just one second, before both shoot to the ground. "I… No, I don't know. And… And… What does happen, Urahara-san?" Licking his cracked lips, Uryuu's eyes shoot upwards again briefly, but long enough for Urahara to notice something. He'd assumed until now that Uryuu's eyes were brown like his father's—the boy so rarely makes eye contact that Urahara is far more likely to be met with the top of his head when speaking to him—but he can see now that in actuality they are a very deep shade of blue. It's not really important, just one of those things he notices when he picks up details of the world around him.

A gust of wind carrying with it the distinct fragrance of rain runs through. As if in response to his ramblings, the higurashi's cries grow more insistent as Urahara adopts the vague hints of a grimace on his flexible mouth. "You go to look for them, but when you get to the place where you're sure you heard the cicada's cries coming from, there's nothing. Gone. Poof. They knew you were coming and flew the coop." He tilts his striped hat a little further down his face and Uryuu frowns at the act, brow furrowed and eyes by now intently trained on Urahara's mouth.

"Oh." The boy's voice is small and just a touch confused in the way of _"Where did _that _come from?" _Eyes darting to examine the dock railing, Uryuu murmurs. "I see." One of the nearby street lamps flickers and he tenses, twisting his head around like a cat, ostensibly to make sure there isn't anything creeping up on him.

Something in Uryuu's dubious tone catches Urahara's attention. "Ishida-san, did you ever try to catch cicadas when you were a small child?"

"Ah… No, I can't say that I have."

"What? You didn't chase cicadas when you were small?" Personally, Urahara can not comprehend this; some of the most idyllic moments of _his _childhood were spent trying to capture cicadas with Yoruichi and Tessai. "Every child chases cicadas!"

"I never did," Uryuu responds quietly; his softened voice carries far more clearly than it has a right to. There is just the faintest suggestion of a wistful note in his voice, but it is superimposed with something far bleaker than that. Abstracted eyes return to scouring the surface of the rustling water; he never meets Urahara's gaze.

_So calm under pressure, always? _It may not be calmness he sees in Uryuu's face, Urahara recognizes. Just a carefully constructed mask of stoicism, strict over pale skin, over eyes that always maintain something of a hard sheen even when it's clear that's not what he intended, over the voice that, under normal circumstances (or so Urahara suspects; as of yet he hasn't had enough proper interactions with the boy to be sure), only allows suggestions of emotion to bleed through. His quiet confidence and steely composure is seemingly bulletproof, but Urahara can guess that it's far from being the nature at the core of him. _Once again, a product of his raising, I do suspect._

_This may be what I need_. Deciding it's now or never, Urahara's eyes narrow shrewdly. "Yes, I imagine there were many things that other children did that you did not." Uryuu's fingers curl tightly over the cool iron railing. "And on the other hand," Urahara goes on mildly, emitting a small, barking laugh and staring off into space, "you instead did things that other children never even dreamed of. In place of a more commonplace, perhaps happier childhood, you…" His voice trails off, the smile fading from his lips. "But not anymore."

Uryuu's reaction is immediate and telling. With the sort of speed that Urahara can't help but must give the boy whiplash, his head snaps around and glinting eyes meeting Urahara's own pale eyes squarely; evidently whatever issues he has with eye contact evaporate in the heat of anger. His lips are stretched taut, hollow, normally waxen cheeks flushed with color. The tale of emotions found in widened, roiling eyes is a cocktail of pain, indignation, the attempt to hide vulnerability and pure, undiluted fury. He never speaks. No words are needed for Urahara to know exactly the thoughts that go through Uryuu's mind.

_My, my, this is a sore spot indeed. How badly it must have festered…_

Though this level of emotion isn't quite what Urahara was expecting, he is unintimidated. True, he can't say he's used to having quite so hateful a look leveled at him—if anything, Urahara doesn't think he's had someone look at him quite so irately since he last worked with Hiyori—but Uryuu is no threat to him. Those ginto tubes (no one ever carries just _one _ginto tube) can only do so much, and Urahara is well-familiar with ginto; he's reasonably confident of his ability to deflect anything Uryuu tries to attack him with. At any rate, no matter how angry such a needling comment makes him, Uryuu isn't the sort to attack someone over something like that.

After a few moments of barely being able to contain his ire, Uryuu seems to regain some control over his temper, swallowing hard with a taut throat and squeezing his cooling eyes tightly shut. The tension goes out of his bony frame and he looks nothing less than utterly exhausted, smaller and frailer than he would have liked Urahara to see him. _Come to mention it, he doesn't look to be in the best of health. Oh, dear. Yes, I can see I was right to come here._

"I won't ask the circumstances," Urahara remarks when he's sure that Uryuu has fully been exhausted of that momentary rage.

Urahara doesn't need to ask _how _Uryuu came to have his spiritual pressure suppressed. There are few ways he knows of that a Quincy actually could have their spiritual pressure suppressed, and only one is applicable considering Uryuu would have been in Seireitei when it happened. _It would have to have been the Sanrei Glove; it's the only explanation that I can think of. _Why Uryuu would have taken it off and how he got his hands on something like that in the first place is irrelevant; Urahara might be a little curious—okay, maybe more than a little—but he doesn't need to know. Digging that far under the youth's thin skin likely would not end well.

"You'll learn to live without it, I suppose." Urahara is careful to keep heavy emotion from bleeding into his voice, though under the circumstances, he supposes that genuine sympathy is acceptable, so he allows it. "You wouldn't be the first to have to start living in a different world."

When Uryuu lifts his voice to speak, there is none of the wrath that his face had borne just minutes earlier present. "How?" he half-whispers, voice barely audible over the cries of the higurashi and the soft wind.

Not sure if Uryuu was speaking to Urahara or to himself, the Shinigami shopkeeper tilts his head. "Did you say something, Ishida-san?"

Blue eyes are fixed firmly on the pavement. Uryuu's jaw twists hideously; the flash of teeth is momentary, the contortions of his face a show of agony no longer as well-hidden as it once was. "How am I supposed to…" His voice cracks and he breaks off, swallowing down on the hard, hot lump in his throat. "How," Uryuu enunciates more clearly, though Urahara can't help but notice that his voice is a little thick, "am I supposed to live anywhere else? How…" He trails off again, and this time, his voice doesn't pick back up. Unable to articulate anything more and likely embarrassed that he gave so much away to Urahara in the first place, he isn't likely to say anything more.

_You know, he's just the same… _Uryuu is either unnoticing or uncaring of Urahara's now-intense scrutiny, and it's probably just as well; the beginnings of pity on the Shinigami's face would likely rub him entirely the wrong way. _He's entirely the same._

Before he saw him again as a teenager, the last time Urahara laid eyes on Ishida Uryuu was the day of Soken's funeral. Ryuuken had been just as amiable as always—_Never can find a hint of true civility for me_—and Urahara had thought it better not to stay around for long. On his way back home, he'd passed by an area a bit out of the way from what few people were actually there; _the old man—strange to be calling him old—never had much of a large social circle. _Hidden by a few leafy trees and pressed up against the funeral home, there was a bench. And on that bench, there was a child.

Urahara hadn't approached him, had stood about ten feet away from Uryuu and watched him. Uryuu never looked up, never noticed he was there. The child wasn't crying; his shoulders were hunched and head drooping, but there were no tears. Instead, there had been a terrible blankness on his face, and a look of total, abject despair stamped over his pale features.

He's the same now as he was then. At eight, Uryuu had been a pale, thin, pretty child (who would perhaps appear a bit more wholesome if he ate more); at sixteen, he is a pale, thin, attractive teenager (Who would _definitely _look better if not gaunt and racked with sickness). More to the point, somewhere he's still that eight-year-old sitting on a bench, unable to see anything beyond the reality of a short, brutal life and the pain experienced at his helplessness to do anything about it.

_And this, I think, is what makes him different from the others. _There are four decidedly mismatched human children whom Urahara knows to be important, all very unusual in their own ways. But there is a difference between Uryuu and the other three. None of them were born into the world of the fantastical and the supernatural. If any of the three of them had to walk away from the supernatural world, yes, it would be painful, so extraordinarily painful, but at least they had a life before that world that they could return to. But this, this is the only world Uryuu has ever known. His whole identity is wrapped up in being a Quincy, and when that is taken away, there's nothing left. _I suppose he dug himself into this hole of his. Still…_

Urahara snaps himself out of his musings. He knows two things. One, that Uryuu is fully aware of what has happened to him, and two, that he wouldn't mind if the situation were to reverse itself. He watches him crack slowly, that calm mask crumbling to reveal turmoil and a writhing pain, and Urahara knows that Uryuu would pay dearly to have his powers back. That's all he needed to know; he can go ahead now.

"You know…" Uryuu's eyes flicker to him, and Urahara quirks an encouraging smile "…if you really want to, I suspect that I could find some way to reverse this—"

"No." Pale eyebrows lift and a smile fades at Uryuu's immediate response, and the boy's cheeks darken with embarrassed color. "I… umm… No, no, thank you, Urahara-san."

_Oh?_ Urahara can't keep surprise from dispersing over his face. _Congratulations, Ishida-san; you are one of the few people who can honestly claim to have surprised me._

_Maybe he's not quite so aware of what's happened to him as I thought. Or maybe he's just too proud to accept any help from me. Of course, it could just be that he doesn't trust me and thinks I'm trying to pull an impression of the man who stands on street corners telling small children that he has candy in his van_.

Urahara wishes he could say that he made that offer entirely out of concern for Uryuu's wellbeing, and part of it was simply concern. Someone has to make sure the boy doesn't end up dead before adulthood, and there doesn't seem to be anyone else filling that role; Urahara supposes he might as well take the role. It's not simply concern, however, that leads him to make the offer.

Out of the four human children he's come into contact with in the past few months, Uryuu is the only one of them with anything resembling sizeable combat experience. More importantly, Uryuu has an advantage that most Shinigami do not, by virtue of being a ranged fighter. A ranged fighter is always an asset to any army, and in the fighting sure to come, Urahara knows that having at least one combatant who can kill at a distance is not an advantage he can afford to pass up.

Ryuuken can not be counted on to cooperate. If it was just Isshin asking him to help, then maybe he might have agreed to cooperate, but Ryuuken won't touch anything even remotely connected to Urahara. Being an adult Quincy, Ryuuken naturally has a great deal more raw power than his child, who had still been growing into his powers when he still had them, does at nearly sixteen. However, with chances of Ryuuken agreeing to help in the upcoming fighting being quite unlikely indeed, his son is the next best option.

_This is not good. _Urahara resists the urge to grimace, something cold settling in the pit of his stomach. In future, in the near future, he's going to need to do one of two thing. Either he's going to have to find a way to convince Uryuu to accept his help—Urahara is not at present entirely certain how he would go about reversing the effects of the Sanrei Glove, but he's sure he could think of something if he tried—or he's going to have to find some way to persuade Ryuuken to do something about it. Ryuuken likely knows of some way to reverse the effects of the Sanrei Glove; it will take a great deal of goading, and possibly be hazardous to his health, but Urahara thinks he might be able to convince the man to do something about his son's condition. _It has to be done, and soon._

Sirens blare in the distance and they are both silent for a long moment. Then, Urahara forces a mild smile back on to his face. Deciding to take a risk, he reaches forward and clasps a hand on Uryuu's shoulder. Uryuu immediately flinches, his whole body stiffening as he sucks in a sharp breath. Urahara's hand is retracted as quickly as it was extended, but he still smiles. "Feel free to come to me if you change your mind."

Uryuu nods jerkily. A flicker of what looks oddly like shame crosses his face; whether it's shame at being pitied, shame at having reacted the way he did to Urahara's hand on his shoulder, or something else, there's no way to tell. "Y-yes, I will. Thank you, Urahara-san," he mutters.

"If there's nothing else…" Urahara turns and starts to go. The night does not grow any shorter, and there's work to be done before the sun crests over the horizon.

"Urahara-san…" He turns at that call. Uryuu's hand skates over the strap of his bag; he dips his head self-consciously, before forcing himself to meet the Shinigami's now slightly curious gaze. "I… When I met you, I don't know why, but you seemed a bit familiar. I was just wondering…" Uryuu stares at him, thin mouth quirking just a little shyly. "Have we ever met before?"

It's not easy to choke back a laugh at that. "Quite possibly." Urahara throws the boy's earlier words back to him before leaving, the "kana-kana-kana" cries of the higurashi ringing in his ears.


	146. 146: Truth

**Title**: Truth**  
>AN**: And once again, I am filling in plot holes: this time, it's why Uryuu seemed to drop his beef against the Shinigami so quickly.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>Among all the jumbled thoughts involving loneliness, frustration, and wounded pride, Uryuu does not at first give thought to something else found all of a sudden to be missing. He's a bit busy trying (and failing) to get over the loss of his Quincy abilities and the fact that his ability to sense spirits at all has been fading, along with what this has been doing to his (admittedly stunted to begin with) social life, to give attention to mostly unrelated subjects.<p>

It's the talk with Urahara that leaves him unable to ignore the change any longer.

Uryuu can't pretend that he'd been expecting the mysterious Shinigami to pop out of nowhere a couple of nights ago out in one of the more secluded areas in town. The implication, he supposes, is that Urahara had either been following him, or that he'd tracked him; both are distinctly unpleasant and make Uryuu glad he carries ginto tubes for reasons other than fending off Hollows.

What Uryuu had expected even less was the offer Urahara made him. _He's willing to do that for me? _he still wonders, as he takes the carton of milk from his refrigerator and sniffs it suspiciously. At not quite dawn, Uryuu is preparing a breakfast consisting of two hard-boiled eggs and—he hopes—a glass of milk. It's always best to make sure the milk's still good before pouring a glass.

_But that won't work, _he realizes, grimacing as he remembers the pill he took not five minutes ago. Dairy products and iron supplements don't mix; he's not supposed to be eating or drinking anything dairy for at least two hours after taking the pill. _It'll be water, instead; I'm not drinking Diet Coke with breakfast._

Back to the point, Uryuu still finds himself stunned by Urahara offering to help him. _There has to be a reason. People like him don't offer to help you simply out of the kindness of their hearts. Don't fool yourself; he wasn't making the offer just to be kind. _It still strikes a chord with him, unlocking some things that feel a great deal like gratitude and maybe, just maybe, a small bit of happiness unfurling in his chest, that anyone's willing to help at all, even if there is an ulterior motive.

He'd still rejected the offer immediately, though. Urahara makes him nervous for reasons Uryuu would rather not admit; Urahara is just a little… _shady _(yes, that's the word he's looking for)_, _and he's not entirely sure that accepting the offer would have been the best idea. Despite that, though, Uryuu doesn't harbor any real dislike for Urahara. He's quite odd, and shady, and sometimes gives off distinctly creepy vibes, but he's been helpful, and it's not often that Uryuu finds someone willing to give him help, even if it is likely not for totally benign reasons. Uryuu goes over what little he knows about Urahara again and again, and finds no reason to dislike him.

_That's the oddest thing. _The eggs, boiling in a pot on the stove, are ready, and Uryuu goes with a wood-handled spoon to fish them out. They'll need a few minutes to cool before he can shell them and eat them, but there's no need to scorch them or let them be ruined. The smell of boiled water and boiled eggs permeates the small apartment. His stomach growls piteously, but Uryuu doesn't take the risk of burning his fingers. _It's so very odd, but when I think about it, I think I know why._

Not too long ago, no matter what his personal thoughts towards Urahara were, Uryuu would have disliked him on principle for being a Shinigami. Even though Urahara no longer seems to be a member of the Gotei Thirteen, Uryuu still would have disliked him because of who he is. Nothing personal; that's just how it was.

Now, things are decidedly different.

At first it amazes him, but Uryuu realizes that he has genuinely come to like certain Shinigami. He has come to be genuinely fond of Ichigo and Rukia, and he supposes he might add Urahara and Yoruichi to the list, albeit the "they're alright" list rather than the "I like them" list. He no longer sees the Shinigami as a faceless organization, as the shadow and the unspoken threat that dogs his every step. He no longer sees the Shinigami as the bogeyman, no longer holds his resentment against that organization as a whole.

Uryuu's shift is partly coming to see Shinigami as individuals. Having met as many of them as he has helps enormously. He can't just see them as a faceless organization when he can put a name to so many; Uryuu is too honest with himself to delude himself into believing otherwise.

The shift also owes its existence to Uryuu finally being honest with himself on another score as well.

It's never been easy to peel the shell off of hard-boiled eggs without damaging the egg itself in the process. Pieces of eggshell, as white as polished ivory, litter the countertop, as they split apart jaggedly under Uryuu's fingernails. One piece digs too far beneath his fingernail and he stops for a moment, sucking on the smarting finger in an attempt to ease the darts of pain traveling up his hand. Finally, the business is done, but he hesitates to eat.

What resentment he harbored against the Shinigami as a whole has vanished like dew off of a leaf under the dawning sun. They're not the faceless institution Uryuu once believed them to be; going out among them has robbed him of the ignorance needed to think that way. He can hate Kurotsuchi Mayuri for what he has done to other Quincy and what he did to him (_Even if I can't be called a Quincy anymore_). Uryuu can hate Mayuri as an individual, as the sadistic monster that he is, but not as a Shinigami. He can't hate Mayuri simply for being a Shinigami.

It's time to face facts. There was never any huge conspiracy, never any collusion amongst the whole organization and the highest levels of government. Most Shinigami have never even heard of the Quincy, let alone know what a Quincy is. In reality, there was a monster, men and women easily tempted by promises of money, and as a result of that there was responsibility that fell to Uryuu, responsibility that he shirked, and a man he failed. Mayuri can be held responsible for what became of Soken following his death, but for his death itself, Uryuu has only himself to blame. He can't hide behind resentment and grudges anymore.

_If I had just been stronger, it's possible he'd still be alive. I can't recall how many times I must have told myself that; I don't care to recall how many times I told myself that. Every time before, it must have been self-pity, but now, it's just cold truth, and nothing else. I can't blame the Shinigami too anymore. Not now that I know their names, not now that I've spoken to them, even befriended a couple of them. I suppose it's time to stop lying to myself._

Taking a fork from the silverware drawer, Uryuu starts to chew slowly on one of the eggs. Normally his favorite breakfast, today he can take no joy in it. _It's just… just food_, he thinks. _Nothing to get excited about._

Outside, night is starting to lose its grip on the city; the tops of buildings and tree branches are gilded in soft, gold light. Uryuu stares bleakly out the crack in his curtains, and swallows on what tastes remarkably like ash in his mouth. It's just another day. Just another day when he wishes the moon would never set, so he wouldn't have to be held under the scrutiny of sunlight.


	147. 147: Reunion

**Title**: Reunion**  
>AN**: There are some contemplations that I will include in later chapters, implications that I will explore there, since the nature of this chapter and what's going on would make them more than a little out of place.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>"<em>I wasn't sure if you knew, so I thought I should inform you." Urahara leans against a lamp post, striped hat tilted low over his upper face and paper fan waving lazily over his mouth to conceal the rest of his face. He is half-lost in shadows and Ryuuken, even though years have passed since they've laid eyes on one another, let alone spoken, finds his presence just as irksome as ever.<em>

"_And what was it you wished to inform me of, Urahara-san?" Ryuuken inquires caustically, ceasing his progress down the sidewalk but not turning to look at the Shinigami. He has no time for these charming little conversations; the sooner he finds himself out of Urahara's company, the better._

_What the shopkeeper says next catches Ryuuken's full attention like a fly in a honey trap._

"_An interesting matter regarding your child."_

At first, Ryuuken hadn't believed what Urahara was telling him. After all, anything that man said needed to be taken with a gargantuan grain of salt, examined for ulterior motives, and picked apart to check for inconsistencies. In short, if something coming out of Urahara's mouth sounded implausible, Ryuuken would take it to be a lie until he believed otherwise.

Now is no different. _Surely he wouldn't… _The last time he saw Uryuu, the boy was dead-set on acting the fool. Clearly having to take care of himself has not cured him of his foolishness, if the boy's recent foray into the Soul Society over a girl he barely knew was any indication. Uryuu takes far too many risks, plays fast and loose with his own life, but surely even he wouldn't be stupid enough to do what Urahara was trying to tell him he had.

To start with, Ryuuken has a hard time believing that a Sanrei Glove survived long enough after the war to find its way into Uryuu's hands. If one had, the only way Uryuu would have utilized it at all would be if he knew what it was, and for that to happen, Soken would have had to give it to him and explain how to use it; had Uryuu simply gone into his grandfather's house after the man's death and found it, he likely never would have taken it since he wouldn't have known what it was. Soken giving the glove to Uryuu would have been painfully out of character; the old man was a fool in many areas, but Ryuuken likes to think he wouldn't have been so irresponsible as to actually give Uryuu something like that. _Though a fool, Father cared too much for Uryuu to give him something like the Sanrei Glove._

More importantly, Ryuuken doubts that Uryuu would have been willing to part with his powers under any circumstances. Uryuu has built his whole life around his relationship to the world of the supernatural; Ryuuken can guess how much he values his abilities, however feeble they are. Why would he ever give that up?

So Ryuuken is quite sure Urahara is lying. He doesn't know what it would profit the Shinigami to lie to him over something like this, but obviously Urahara gets some sort of satisfaction out of it.

Still…

Walking home alone in the dark (his car's been having some difficulties; Ryuuken took it to a shop not too long ago, but hasn't heard back), Ryuuken stops, frowns, and sighs. As sure as he is that Urahara is lying and Uryuu hasn't gotten his hands on a Sanrei Glove, let alone used then removed it, there's always the chance that the dodgy shopkeeper is being completely honest for once. _It won't hurt to check._

Though Ryuuken hates to make use of his own abilities, trying to sense Uryuu's reiatsu is a far easier way to assess his physical state than going to his apartment and chancing that he might not be home for hours yet. _There shouldn't be any problem; I've never had much difficulty picking up on Uryuu's spiritual pressure._

It's when it takes him nearly ten minutes to catch even a trace of something resembling a Quincy's reiatsu, and what he senses very nearby that small spark of spirit energy, that Ryuuken starts to understand.

-0-0-0-

Uryuu has grown a great deal since the last time Ryuuken laid eyes on him, though he still isn't very tall. That's the first thing his mind jumps to, cataloguing changes in Uryuu's physical appearance, when it at first refuses to touch on anything else. His shirt is open and Ryuuken can see that he's even more desperately thin than he used to be; clearly having to support himself has not treated him particularly well. If he got up close, he might well be able to count ribs.

Other than that, in terms of the physical, Uryuu hasn't changed much. His eyes are still very blue and rather wide, his hair still deep, dark bluish black, his skin as pallid as aged bed sheets treated with bleach. His face is a little narrower, much gaunter with thin skin stretched tight over hollow cheeks. Uryuu's voice seems to have broken since Ryuuken last heard him speak, but he uses all of the same inflections, has the same gestures and little expressions and nervous tics at nearly sixteen as he did at thirteen.

In physical appearance, Uryuu is little changed. In matters of the _other _plane, however… _He must have used the Sanrei Glove then, and removed it. _When Ryuuken had finally pinpointed Uryuu's reiatsu, it had been so low that, coupled with the bizarre signature very near him, Ryuuken had initially assumed that he was on Death's door. A Quincy's spiritual pressure is intimately connected to their physical wellbeing; one with energy levels as low as Uryuu's currently are would, under normal circumstances, either be severely ill or mortally wounded. _The Sanrei Glove would account for such drastically low levels of spiritual pressure, but that still doesn't make sense. Shouldn't he… _Ryuuken shakes his head to clear it of such thoughts. _He can't be in very good shape physically if his energy levels are so low._

Flat. He looks flat. There's barely any spiritual energy around Uryuu at all, the remnants hanging off of him in tatters, and Uryuu doesn't look all there, hazy, insubstantial. This isn't what normal humans, humans without any spiritual pressure or awareness at all, look like, at least not to Ryuuken's eyes. This is something different thanks to the inherently unnatural nature of what has befallen Uryuu. It's like staring at someone through a screen door.

Ryuuken doesn't know what the creature that attacked Uryuu is. It has the appearance of a Hollow, but its reiatsu is different and Ryuuken has never encountered a Hollow that can split into two different creatures (Granted, he's never really sought out Hollows, so there could be Hollows that function as multiple parts of a whole, but still).

_Now what to do about this…_

If the knowledge that Uryuu had gone into "enemy territory" to rescue a Shinigami hadn't cemented Ryuuken's opinion of him as an idiot, this would. Attacking some strange creature every bit as dangerous as and clearly related to a Hollow with ginto, when he doesn't have anything to fall back on, _that _is the very definition of "suicidal idiocy." _When it comes to maturity, Uryuu hasn't changed at all. Whether intentionally or not, he still seems bent on getting himself killed in horrific ways, just like his grandfather. Just like his mother._

Uryuu has made his bed and must lie in it, or at least that's what Ryuuken would think if the boy wasn't still a prime target for supernatural monsters bent on eating him, even with his reiatsu all but destroyed. If Uryuu was no longer a target for Hollows, or strange Hollow-like creatures, Ryuuken would be glad to leave him as he is now. _Let him live with the consequences of bad decisions._

Ryuuken can't do that, however. Uryuu is in constant danger of being killed and eaten even if he is no longer any threat to Hollows (_There's something else too, something Ryuuken would rather not address_). The boy is a complete and utter fool and Ryuuken has always suspected that he will go out the same way as his mother and grandfather, but he won't—_can't_—just let it happen in front of him. He won't be a witness to Uryuu's bloody death.

Blue eyes, wide open and bearing indignation with nervousness with wild-eyed fear (the leftovers of his fight with the recently killed creature, or maybe just fear of Ryuuken) and the beginnings of indignation, stare on him and Ryuuken shakes his head. "Pathetic," he mutters, bitterly disappointed, both with Uryuu and, oddly, with himself.

The reasons Ryuuken would be disappointed with himself, he does not care to explore.

Oh yes, he'll help Uryuu. But there is a price to pay.

-0-0-0-

Uryuu smells cigarette smoke long before he sees him, and at first, he tries to tell himself that whoever it is about to stumble on a scene of eldritch horror completely at odds with the 'normal' world, it can't possibly be _him_.

Then, he finds himself watching a bolt of silver light split the black sky and howls of pain pierce straight into his bones. The Hollow (_Hollows? There were two of them, after all, even if they seem to form two halves of a whole_.) may have been slipping in and out of focus to Uryuu's eyes, but he can hear it as well as ever. _A Hollow's screams are always piercing, but this, this is even worse than the others I've encountered._

"—unsightly of you." Uryuu only catches those three words, but the hard, flat inflection is one he recognizes all too well. _No… It can't be him._

When he turns, though, there is a solitary man walking down the street towards him, remarkably unruffled in light of the Hollow screaming in agony nearby. A man with a familiar walk, familiar set of the shoulders, and what Uryuu expected least to see in his hand, gleaming a hard shade of silver under harsh, sterile lamplights.

Uryuu swallows hard. _It is him. That's… That's just great… Just wonderful, _his now hideously alarmed mind alleges, when in truth Uryuu's feelings lean towards the exact opposite direction. _Saved by the very last person I ever wanted to see again. This makes no sense; I thought he'd surrendered his powers, or never had them in the first place. That was what he seemed to imply all those years ago._

The truth, it seems, is different.

Ryuuken seems little-changed. Uryuu can't help but notice that. He's still silver-haired and otherwise relatively youthful-looking, still tall and stony-faced. His sharp, quiet voice, already rough and jagged to begin with thanks to years of smoking, has grown a little rougher since Uryuu last spoke with him, drawing out letters harshly. It might just be Uryuu's imagination (_he doesn't think it is_), but Ryuuken looks thinner too. _With no one to make him eat when he tries to boycott food, I don't suppose he would have _gained _any weight. _This Uryuu registers with some small measure of regret, before he recognizes the old trap and refuses to fall into it. _Feeling sorry for him has only ever gotten you in trouble._

Observations concerning Ryuuken's appearance soon give way to resentment and what Uryuu wants least to feel, fear. Fear of the Hollow, fear of him. The latter makes short work of the former, and for one mad moment, Uryuu catches himself wondering if Ryuuken will turn that bow on him.

It's amazing, that just being in his presence can still bring the old terror of claustrophobia and cold, empty houses crashing back down on his shoulders. It's amazing that, in the more than two years since Uryuu last lived under the same roof as Ryuuken, these feelings have not abated at all, that just seeing Ryuuken is all it needs to be just as keen as ever. _I'm still afraid of him_, a small voice says. _That must be it. I never wanted to admit that he frightens me, never wanted to admit that he has the power over me required to frighten me. He does, though. God, who _wouldn't _be frightened of him?_

_I never wanted to see you again. _Uryuu's lip curls as Ryuuken adopts a derisive tone, hard eyes mocking. _I preferred living in indigence, barely able to afford to eat, drink or clothe myself, to having to live with you. And you know, I got the distinct impression that if I got eaten by a Hollow you would shed no tears, so why come to my defense at all?_

Through the haze of fighting the urge to turn tail and run like a coward, through the pall of resentment and bitterness and anger and fear, Uryuu fights to do what he almost never could in childhood. _Look him in the eye. Look him in the eye, and tell him to go away. Just tell him to go away. He might not actually leave, but at least he knows where he stands with you._

But Uryuu never says that. He can't quite find the nerve, nor the courage, nor the heart, to tell Ryuuken to go away. He starts to turn to leave instead, but then, Ryuuken says something that stops Uryuu cold.

"Would you like to have your powers back?"

His head whips around at that and, deep blue eyes as wide and round as coins, Uryuu stares at him. Ryuuken betrays no emotion, but there's a gleam in his eyes that Uryuu can't say he likes.

"I see that you would. So tell me, Uryuu. What are you willing to give up in payment?"


	148. 148: Visit

**Title**: Visit**  
>AN**: Given that Urahara seemed glad that he didn't have to run into Ryuuken when he came to tell Uryuu about Orihime being kidnapped in the Arrancar arc, I can imagine that for whatever reason there is some bad blood between them. Further note: I wrote this a while back, tweaking it to make it fit better with what the story has become in the meantime. I hope it's still alright.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>After leaving his insolent child to contemplate choices and promises on a night-darkened street, Ryuuken makes his way through streets and alleys towards the noxiously familiar building that is Urahara Kisuke's shop.<p>

Once long ago, Ryuuken swore to himself that he would never have contact with Urahara again, not even to save his own life. It's not so much a matter of hatred against the Shinigami on a whole as it is an intolerance of Urahara himself. Ryuuken never trusted Urahara, even having known the man for most of his life. Patently untrustworthy, the man can be trusted only to lie and withhold vital information, and on a pettier, more personal level, he is a truly irritating man. Ryuuken wants nothing to do with him.

However, he has never encountered a Hollow the likes of what he killed tonight. While Ryuuken normally has an interest in the afterlife at the level of zero percent, the thought of a new breed of Hollow existing carries with it truly nasty implications and he wouldn't mind being brought up to speed. Urahara is the man with the answers; Ryuuken will get the information he needs out of him regardless of what he has to do to get it. As much as he doesn't like to deal with Urahara once, let alone twice, in the same night, there's no avoiding it now.

It's nearly dawn when Ryuuken reaches the shop. The front door has been left slightly ajar and Ryuuken can tell Urahara is inside, can feel the familiar reiatsu. Without bothering to knock he lets himself in and sees Urahara standing straight and tall in the gloom, as though he was waiting for him to come. Shadows cling to his dark green haori and he lights a lamp, fanning himself lazily with his paper fan all the while. "Good morning, Mister Ishida. What can I do for you?"

"What is going on?" Ryuuken demands bluntly, his eyes cold and locked in an icy glare. No time for pleasantries, and the less time spent in Urahara's _scintillating_ company the better.

Urahara stiffens a little, and Ryuuken can see secrets stamped across his face plain as day even with that idiotic hat half-shrouding his face in protective shadow. "There's always something going on, Mister Ishida. That's the way of the world." His mild, exasperatingly easygoing voice is entirely too casual to be anything but a bald-faced lie. "Could you perhaps be a little more specific?"

It would be so easy to give into the urge to hold Urahara at the end of an arrow and use _that _as leverage to get the answers he needs, but Ryuuken knows better. Urahara learned long ago that the only way to keep any of the Ishida clan on speaking terms with him was to be polite to its members; that works both ways and violence is no way to persuade Urahara to be frank. Instead, Ryuuken shelves his intense loathing of the Seireitei reject for one moment and forces himself to be polite.

"A few hours ago, my son was attacked by two Hollows the likes I have not seen before. Given that you seem to be something of an authority on such subjects, I suspect you know something about this new breed of Hollow."

No longer can Ryuuken question whether he has Urahara's attention; the whimsical little smile vanishes from the Shinigami's face as would smoke be blown away with a fan. Urahara's tone is as unlike him as anything Ryuuken has ever heard, flat and even a little tense. "Describe them to me."

"They were very large, for one, and even though the two Hollows could operate independently of each other they seemed to form two halves of a whole." Brown eyes narrow as Ryuuken remembers the howls the two Hollows made. He's never been particularly intimidated by Hollows and can't honestly say he was shaken but the screams the creatures made had been abnormally piercing. "They were unusually resilient, even for Hollows of their size. It took three shots to slay them." Though his simpleton son seems to think killing two Hollows in three shots to be an impressive feat, this is only an indication of the differences in strength between them. Ryuuken knows his own strength and he knows better; the Hollows should have been felled with the first shot. "I didn't recognize the reiatsu." As with communicating what it took to kill them, this is a grudging admission. "It was only vaguely similar to a regular Hollow's."

For the longest time Urahara says nothing. The flimsy paper fan goes to shield his mouth, and Ryuuken grits his teeth; _Do not attempt to hide your face from me; we have had this conversation before._ He seems to sense when his guest is about to lose patience with him, however, and just as Ryuuken's starting to contemplate the very likely possibility that he'll be holding the shopkeeper at arrow-point after all, Urahara deigns to respond, smiling all too reasonably.

"Mister Ishida, it has been I believe over twenty years since you last hunted Hollows on a regular basis. As a matter of fact, I'm not sure you ever hunted them regularly to start with. On that note, are you entirely certain you have not simply mistaken these Hollows you speak of for Menos?" Similar to his smile, the inflection Urahara chooses to adopt is all too reasonable. The presence of condescension is plain with the indication that Urahara is speaking as one would to an over-reacting child. Ryuuken takes this as well as anyone could expect him to.

The shop's atmosphere chills considerably as dull gold and rusty scarlet shadows start to seep through the door and the windows towards them. "Do not take me for a fool, Urahara-san."

"I can't imagine _anyone _doing that, Mister Ishida." That Urahara seems for all the world to be entirely sincere in this assertion only makes it more of an insult.

The retired Quincy turned doctor curls his lip dangerously. "I know the reiatsu of a Menos, Urahara-san. This was something else entirely. Now, given that these Hollows I encountered are unlikely to be the last to invade the living world, and because I am certain you had something to do with this—" a flicker of discomfort settles on Urahara's face "—I would appreciate being told what they are, where they came from, how they came to be and what, if anything, the Shinigami have to do with it."

Urahara's discomfiture is undeniably satisfying but it cuts lines deeper into his skin than it should, and Ryuuken wonders if he's going to regret cornering him after all. "It's a long story, Mister Ishida," Urahara prevaricates tentatively.

Ryuuken shoots a pointed glance out of the front door. The sun is just barely starting to swell over the horizon; something has been spilled on the floor recently and it glitters stunningly in the half-hearted sunlight. It can't be any later than five-thirty in the morning. "I have plenty of time, Urahara-san. All the time in the world."

Waving his fan to and fro nervously and letting his striped hat slide a little further down his face, Urahara nods reluctantly and launches in. "Let me start at the beginning…" When he finishes some fifteen minutes later, he's waving his fan furiously and Ryuuken can just barely make out his mouth twitching agitatedly behind it. "Does this answer your questions, Mister Ishida?"

For himself, it takes an appalling amount of self-control for Ryuuken not to mutter _"I knew this was your fault somehow_." As ever, when something improbable comes out of Urahara's mouth, Ryuuken can't help but think that it's probably a lie of some sort, but tonight, he's inclined to believe him. What Ryuuken also knows is that if Urahara was lying, he would likely attempt to place the blame on someone else's shoulders. Oh well. He can always ask Isshin later; Isshin, at least, can be trusted not to lie to him.

"You're actually telling the whole truth, for once." The cross between a statement and a question, Ryuuken narrows his eyes and frowns at the ground.

"Of course."

"Why?"

"Mister Ishida, the time it would have taken me to think up a plausible lie to feed to you would have roused your suspicion. Goodness knows that you are the _last _person I want to lose patience with me. The truth seemed simpler, and given your rather… _unsociable _nature, I doubt that you are just going to blurt this out to every person you meet, am I correct?"

The message is clear. Ryuuken doesn't see the point, especially given that there's still the chance that he's either been lied to outright on the subject of the extent of Urahara's involvement in all of this, or at least that he doesn't have the full story on anything. _You want me to play secret keeper then?_

In what seems like a split-second but is really closer to a minute of Ryuuken pausing to think about the most recent developments (_advanced Hollows known as Arrancar and Seireitei thrown into disarray following the defection of three of its captains and now this Aizen Sousuke threatens all creation. _Ryuuken shakes his head wearily; _trust the Shinigami to let their politics and their people run amok_), Urahara regains his at times unnerving poise. His fan waves lazily instead of frenetically across his pale, permanently unshaven face, trying to get some cool air on his skin in the perpetually stuffy shop.

"So, Mister Ishida, you have noticed the differences in your son?" Something shrewd lurks in the depths of those ice gray eyes. "If you saw him just a few hours ago, then you must have noticed _something _different."

Eyes narrowed coldly, Ryuuken nods. "I could hardly fail to notice." It was frankly bizarre seeing Uryuu like that, reiatsu all but destroyed with only tiny bits, pieces and shreds clinging to him like an intangible layer of rent clothing. Again, Ryuuken puts the exact word as 'flat'; Uryuu had seemed oddly flat, flimsy, frail.

_Showing up as colorlessly white under the harsh lamplight, Uryuu's narrow, faintly gaunt face is absolutely bloodless and somehow, Ryuuken can't quite find the words to rebuke him for gaping._

"His foolishness has cost him his powers," Ryuuken remarks snappishly. "I can't say that I find the fact that Uryuu has done something stupid and idiotic to be at all out of character for him."

_The boy bristles as Ryuuken outlines his terms and if it were anyone but a scrawny, vaguely effeminate-looking teenage boy, the effect might actually be something resembling intimidating. It doesn't matter; Uryuu will listen whether he likes it or not_.

Urahara nods, the left side of his mouth twitching in the unholy lovechild of a fatherly smile and an incisive smirk. "And tell me, Mister Ishida, how is Ishida-san feeling?"

_There is something stretched and strained about Uryuu's face that goes far beyond emotional stress and his normal near-neurosis, but Ryuuken ignores it. It's not something he wants to dwell on_.

Even knowing where Urahara is going with this, Ryuuken frowns darkly. "I couldn't tell you. And I fail to see how Uryuu's state of health is any business of yours," he adds more sharply.

The taller of the two men shrugs. "I can't help but be concerned—_someone _has to be." Urahara stares at Ryuuken, his gaze frank and direct. "And I have reason to be concerned, don't I, Mister Ishida?"

_Just leave it, _Ryuuken can't quite say, and all the malevolent glowers in the world can't stop Urahara, it seems, because he just smiles slightly and keeps on going.

"I'll take the liberty of filling you in, Mister Ishida. Since losing his powers, Ishida-san's health has been taking a slow but steady decline. It's not serious right now, and I don't think he's noticed anything out of the ordinary; after all, he's often sick, isn't he?" The last vestiges of Urahara's whimsical smile evaporates like water in the unforgiving desert sun. "We both know why, considering there's only one way Ishida-san could have lost his spiritual powers to begin with."

Ryuuken's fingers itch for a cigarette but he ignores the urge to light up. "Removal of the Sanrei Glove should have killed him within minutes," he murmurs clinically.

"Oh believe me Mister Ishida, I know." Urahara grimaces and adds in an undertone, voice unreadable and eyes downcast, "I remember the last war all too well."

Ignoring what he can't help but see as anything but an attempt to goad him into anger, Ryuuken nods. "Death within ten to fifteen minutes of removing the glove is the accepted rule—not that I think my idiot father ever told Uryuu that, otherwise he might not have been so eager to utilize it in the first place."

At this, Urahara's face reads two things. First, there is stunned shock when he realizes that it was Soken who gave Uryuu the Sanrei Glove. That Ryuuken can understand; for all that Soken was a fool he usually exercised enough good judgment to know better than to give suicide weapons to children. He's still trying to get over the shock of the realization that Uryuu must have gotten the glove from Soken himself. Second, there's a strange look over his face and even if Urahara doesn't say anything the words are written all over his face. _"I don't think you know your child as well as you think you do." _It's the height of presumption to even think that, and Ryuuken has to remind himself that Urahara didn't put it to the air explicitly to keep him from retorting.

"I've been doing some thinking…" That speculative note sounds much more like the face Urahara puts to the world at large; the inventor, the salesman, the vapid idiot. "I think the reason Ishida-san didn't die immediately after removing the glove is because he did so in Soul Society; the ubiquitous presence of spirit particles was probably what kept him alive there, and there may well be some clinging to him now. But that's not going to last forever, is it?

"It's sad, don't you think? As the vestiges of his spiritual abilities continue to fade away, Ishida-san will get sicker and sicker. His growing weakness will spit in the face of worldly explanation and confound doctors, but you and I, we'll know the truth even if he doesn't." An aura of melancholy suddenly (and bizarrely) permeates the Shinigami. "Then, one day, probably at the moment when he can no longer see pluses or Hollows or Shinigami at all, he'll just stop. He'll drop where he stands. It will be sudden. It will be quick. A moment of terror as everything goes silent and his heart ceases to beat. He'll just stop." Even if he smiles now there is still a pervasive air of gloom about Urahara, trapped in his slackened skin and his heavy eyes, and that just makes the smile more macabre; _Urahara-san is a master of the macabre. _"So, in your _professional _opinion, how long do you think he has?"

There can be nothing more startling than the realization that even though Ryuuken long ago made his peace with the fact that Uryuu will likely die young, he still has a hard time breathing at the thought of the scenario Urahara has laid out. Breathing is brought under control quickly and systematically so he can speak evenly, and even manage a practically frigid lack of concern. "I would have to say less than a year. If he's only now starting to get sick, then ten, perhaps eleven months. Barring a miracle, no more than that."

In the half-light of dawn, chiaroscuro slanting more towards shadow than light, Urahara manages a hideous smirk. "And what are you going to do about it?"

If he's trying to goad him into a response, he'll not find a willing guinea pig here. There's no point besides. Urahara gets no answer.

Apparently haughty silence is all the answer Urahara needs to inspire another attempt. The paper fan clutched in his hand that had previously been lying prostrate and moribund starts to flap again, some angry white bird trying to make itself bigger to intimidate its foe. "Mister Ishida, I know three things about your son. The first is that he's too young to be fighting. The second is that even if he's too young to be fighting, he's also too hardened, too cynical and too proud to view coddling and offers of help as anything but an attempt to undermine him and put him in someone else's debt." Again a flicker of something bleak passes his face. "I gave him an admittedly vague offer and he turned me down flat. Not a hint of hesitation. In that respect at least, he is indistinguishable from his father." Ryuuken doesn't rise to the bait; he only stares impatiently.

Urahara screams of moroseness and he shakes his head and barks a wry laugh. "And the third is a startling thing. When Ishida-san latches on to someone, he will gladly risk life and limb for them without a second thought, even if he is hopelessly outclassed or he doesn't have the means to defend them at all. I've seen him do it." An oddly gentle smile appears on his lips. "Perhaps it isn't so surprising, given his history and his personality."

"The fool," Ryuuken mutters, wincing at the light that's starting to make the windows burn. Urahara is leaning against a display case, one arm folded across his chest in repose and the other fanning his paper fan languidly, sending billows of air across his face. He isn't looking at his guest; instead, Urahara's eyes are directed at the opposite window. As soon as the hints of something human entered his psyche they are gone, and he is the enigmatic, infuriating Shinigami again, the Shinigami Ryuuken so detests having to deal with. "Well you don't need to worry, Urahara-san." The only way to counter Urahara's ramblings is with acerbic sarcasm. "I think you'll find that the issue is already well on its way to resolving itself."

Urahara's eyebrows disappear into the haze of shadows cast by his hat. "Really? You're going to do _that_, are you? To your own child?" His tone is torn between surprise and disinterest clearly false, but the former is the predominant of the two. Surprise soon gives way to the astute look that's always been too incisive by half. "But not for free, am I correct?" When Ryuuken only stares at him, Urahara laughs. "I see you are behaving true to form; nothing without its price. You never change, Mister Ishida."

All the response Urahara gets is a slammed door; Ryuuken can stand his company no longer.

The sun is casting golden spindles of light all over the dreary streets and alleyways, bringing to the forefront the reality of grime and poverty and everything insufficient to sustain life.

Day has arrived. Ryuuken is glad to return to the land of the living once more.

As for Uryuu, Ryuuken's made his mind up about Uryuu.

If Uryuu agrees to this, then so much the better. If he doesn't, then Ryuuken will tell him he's dying and see if that changes any of the defiance in the boy's attitude.


	149. 149: Association

**Title**: Association**  
>AN**: Unreliable narrator ahead. It's bad when people make assumptions when they don't have all the facts. The worst part is that Ryuuken believes everything he speculates; worse still is that some of it's true.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>Below, the hospital is much the same as always, orderly and bustling, filled with the usual mixture of long-term patients, accident victims, sufferers of flu and other maladies. Normally on such an afternoon, Ishida Ryuuken would not be found sitting his office; if anything, he would normally be more than a little difficult to track down on afternoons like this one. There's too much work to be done—his rationalization—to be sitting behind a desk.<p>

"_Take all the time you need," Ryuuken remarks with noticeable mildness, when he sees Uryuu hesitate. "But don't wait too long, Uryuu," he adds darkly. "My offer will not be open forever."_

True enough that it won't be, but likely not for the reasons Uryuu thinks. Knowing Uryuu, a few hours has been long enough for him to weigh his options. Whatever decision he has come to, he will likely come to give it to him sometime today. Ryuuken may as well be somewhere Uryuu can easily find him, somewhere they can have a truly private conversation. _It's just a matter of time._

Balancing an ink pen between his fingers, Ryuuken leans back in his chair, staring out the window absently. He's finished with everything for today, and with the school hours done with, he suspects it won't be much longer before Uryuu shows up. Though he would rather not admit it, he is starting to feel a bit fatigued; the consequence of not being as young as he used to be and, from there, not being able to handle not having slept in more than twenty-four hours quite as well as he used to.

_Last night…_

Ryuuken's thoughts are devoured with recollections of the… _eventful _night before. Mutated and modified Hollows dubbed Arrancar, revelations of strife among the Shinigami, speaking with and seeing Uryuu for the first time in more than two years made for a night in which Ryuuken never felt even remotely tired. It also raises questions that Ryuuken, even now, especially now, is struggling to answer for himself.

The way things are going for the Shinigami right now is a perfect example of why the Quincy race came about in the first place. If Ryuuken remembers his history, the Quincy came about roughly seventeen or eighteen hundred years ago. During that time, the Shinigami had been consumed by upheaval, to the point that their internal conflict led them to all but abandon their duties of purifying Hollows and shuttling souls.

_When the Shinigami get careless, everything goes to Hell. They called the Quincy pests to be exterminated, but they had more than a small hand in the Quincy's creation. _Delving further into secret and all-but-forgotten histories, Ryuuken can guess, even without remembering the full story, how it happened. The Shinigami didn't do their jobs, and eventually a group of spiritually sensitive people with abnormal abilities got sick and tired of watching their loved ones be savaged by the monsters the Shinigami neglected to kill.

Now, the Shinigami are gearing up for war and Ryuuken can't help but darkly notice that he's seen more Hollows skulking around the deserted areas of Karakura Town than what can be considered normal. _They're more concerned about getting ready to fight each other than they are about doing their jobs, but it's not like there's anything unusual about that. _

Ah well. Barring unforeseen circumstances, Ryuuken has no intention of involving himself in this, and if he can help it, Uryuu will stay out of it as well. No one ever benefits for interfering in the affairs of the Shinigami, no matter what the situation. Whether intentionally or not, the Shinigami usually find a way to make interlopers suffer for ever trying to meddle in affairs not their own.

_It's been a long time since Ryuuken last leveled an arrow against a Hollow or anything resembling a Hollow, and the feeling is much the same. The weight of the bow, painless jolts of lightning going up and down his arms, and the screams of the creature when bolts of light ravage its flesh._

_Uryuu just stares at him the whole time, white-lipped and stunned._

Arrancar. That was what Urahara called the strange creature, a modified Hollow more dangerous and more difficult to kill than the average, run-of-the-mill Hollow. This is what humanity has to look forward to thanks to the Shinigami and their neglect. If Aizen Sousuke is truly the psychopath described, then surely he must have given off something resembling warning signs; if the Shinigami actually cared at all whether or not their soldiers were mentally stable, well-adjusted individuals, they could have caught it and either removed him from the service or at least put him through counseling. If something had been done about him, anything at all, then there would be no Arrancar and no impending 'war.'

As the hours grow longer, Ryuuken lets the pen fall to the desk and clasps his hands together, watching the shadows gather across rooftops. _When is he coming? _

In restoring the boy's powers, Ryuuken reflects that he's probably just enabling Uryuu's more recklessly suicidal behavior. He has no doubt that once the child has his powers back, Uryuu will go straight back to spending his nights tracking and hunting Hollows—to no good end, most likely. _I suppose it comes down to what I would prefer—having Uryuu possibly dead with his powers, or certainly dead without them._

There's no choice, though. The power loss is steadily killing him and Uryuu is still a target for every Hollow and, if last night was any indication, every Arrancar in the area even without them. He clearly doesn't possess the common sense needed not to try to engage foes even though his only defense is ginto tubes. _The ginto wasn't having any permanent effect on the Arrancar; surely he must have noticed that, and still, he just kept fighting. Idiot boy._

If Uryuu wishes to get himself killed fighting against Hollows with his powers restored to him, Ryuuken doesn't see how this is any concern of his. That's his choice, his right, and not Ryuuken's responsibility. _It doesn't bother me, _Ryuuken insists stubbornly. _It doesn't. If Uryuu wants to play the fool and hold out his neck before the Hollow's maw, then that is how he will die. But only if he does so with something resembling a chance of survival._

Perhaps some part of him Ryuuken does not wish to recall is just interested in tipping the odds. There's something offensive about watching Uryuu go about his life with a Bull's eye painted on his back, but without any effective means of defense. There's something offensive about Uryuu being a lamb led to the slaughter.

So before the new sun comes with the next morning, Uryuu's abilities will be returned to him. Ryuuken knows he can't stop Uryuu from attacking Hollows, but he can at least make him somewhat more difficult prey, and by the terms of their "deal", he can keep him away from those who have put him in unnecessary danger and forced him into the situation of helplessness in the first place.

A Quincy does not benefit from associating with the Shinigami. In fact, that association usually ends up with them dead; Ryuuken considers his association with Isshin and his father's with Urahara to be flukes. Uryuu will be more likely to survive if his contact with the Shinigami is terminated, and _far _more likely to survive if he no longer associates with the other children who have brought him to ruin.

Isshin called them his 'friends.' Ryuuken isn't convinced. _Uryuu wouldn't recognize friendship when he saw it. When has he ever had a friend to know the difference between friendship and someone using him for their own purposes? Likely he was so desperate for companionship that he latched on to the very first people who showed him something resembling regard. _Ryuuken has no doubt that Uryuu has latched on passionately to these people he calls 'friends'; he does know Uryuu to be capable of the sort of loyalty required to lay down his life for others. That the loyalty is reciprocal is what he doubts, doubts highly.

Those who are friends and comrades-in-arms support each other in battle. They watch each other's backs, defend the fallen among them, and they do not leave their friends in such a situation that they are forced to utilize a normally fatal technique in battle. If Uryuu had friends who were truly willing to support him, he would never have needed to use and later remove the Sanrei Glove in the first place. He never would have been left alone to be put in that situation.

_He was abandoned in battle, with no one to help him. And I found him alone, on the verge of being killed by an Arrancar. _Ryuuken can only assume two things of why Uryuu was alone last night. One, is that his 'friends' know he's lost his powers and weren't concerned. The second is that they don't know because he wasn't willing to tell them. The former illustrates a lack of true caring; the latter implies that Uryuu is insecure about his friends knowing that he is no longer of any use in battle, and indicates to Ryuuken that Uryuu himself has doubts about just how far his 'friendship' with these people goes.

It will be painful, like the harvesting of necrotic flesh from a wound. But however painful, necrotic flesh always needs to be taken from otherwise healthy flesh. If Uryuu wants to be a Quincy, then he must live as the Quincy do—alone. _Because that is how we always find ourselves in the end. He's better off kept away from them._

Uryuu won't be able to keep the promise, not forever. Ryuuken knows full well that Uryuu will make the promise one way or another, and he won't be able to keep it. The boy has his pride, his damnable pride, and that will force him to keep it for a few weeks at least, maybe longer. And all the while his loyalty to these careless people will make living life like he never knew them akin to walking on glittering shards of broken glass.

_And I'll be angry when he breaks that promise, at him and at myself. Uryuu for not keeping his word and myself for believing for even a moment that he would keep this promise for the rest of his days (Or at least until I died)._

Getting Uryuu where he can keep an eye on him is Ryuuken's only chance of keeping him alive long enough for the Shinigami to settle their affairs and things to go back to normal. It's the only way.

_There's just one question left. Will he accept?_

The shadows that were sneaking across rooftops have now found their way into Ryuuken's office, darkening the floor and the walls. Ruddy sunlight pours through the window, casting red everything the light touches. Still, there is no knock at the door.

Ryuuken knows Uryuu will come soon. When he comes, though, he has no idea whether it will be to acquiesce to or refuse Ryuuken's terms. If Uryuu says yes, swallows his pride and gives up all contact with his 'friends', then so much the better. If he says no…

If Uryuu says no, that will be the point where Ryuuken has to force the issue.

Ryuuken doesn't know how long it would take and exactly what he would have to say to convince Uryuu that he is dying. He doesn't know what he would have to do to make it clear to him what the effect of the Sanrei Glove is doing to him. _It's a suicide weapon, not a toy. How could he have used it so carelessly? _No matter what he would have to say, Ryuuken has no doubt that he would be able to make the truth plain to Uryuu eventually. He doesn't know what he would have to break, what he would have to shatter to do this, though.

_I only pray it doesn't come to that. _Ryuuken hopes that Uryuu will say 'yes.' He genuinely does not like to win his battles this way, and if he is forced to tell Uryuu what's happening to him, the situation will only grow worse. Uryuu will feel that he has been coerced into making a pact with Ryuuken and his resentment of him will only be worse than what it would have been already.

The child who is insolent, the child who is reckless, the child who latched on to people who let him fall in to this situation, the child who still calls him by his given name. Back in his life again, from this night on. Ryuuken can not tell if this is a good thing or not, only that it must be. Quincy exist alone, associating only with their own kin. They have never benefited for associating with others. Uryuu must learn that if he plans to survive.

Ryuuken can only wait for the knock on the door and the flash of vivid blue eyes that don't truly belong to the one who wears them. He's not sure if his heart hammers, or if it beats at all.


	150. 150: Promises

**Title**: Promises**  
>AN**: I am up past four hundred reviews. Oh and, since I forgot to say it with the last chapter: Happy New Year's, everybody.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>No one really notices that Uryuu isn't paying attention today in class, but he doesn't really mind it; in fact, that's how he likes it. Through the haze of voices and scratches on the blackboard, he lives in total anonymity, engrossed by his thoughts.<p>

It's not like he hasn't been since last night.

_So… He does possess the abilities after all. _Uryuu carries his thoughts outside after class ends and finds himself sitting on a secluded park bench, alone apart from the occasional bicyclist speeding past. There's no wind and the only sound is that of a crow cawing in the distance, solitary and oddly forlorn.

Uryuu spent his entire childhood believing that he and his grandfather were the only ones in his family still living who possessed any of the abilities of a Quincy. Ryuuken, he assumed, had either not been born with these abilities, or he had never been trained in how to use them. Given the level of antipathy he harbors against the world of the supernatural, if it's always been this way, Uryuu can't see how his grandfather would have forced Ryuuken to learn. _Well, maybe for his own defense. I doubt Grandfather wanted him to get killed like that._

_I remember the man who disavowed all ties with the Quincy race when I was a child. Now he turns out to be something different entirely._

Ryuuken claims that Uryuu misunderstood him all those years ago, but Uryuu knows better. A lie of omission is still a lie, and Ryuuken clearly would have preferred for Uryuu to go with the assumption that he possessed none of the abilities of a Quincy.

Far from being nothing more than a spiritually sensitive human whose potential was never tapped, Ryuuken has revealed himself to be a trained Quincy and, though Uryuu is loath to admit it, one far stronger than he himself was when he still possessed that which allowed him to be called 'Quincy.' Terrifyingly powerful, in fact, if the way he obliterated that strange Hollow the night before, without having to exert any real effort at all, is any indication.

They have always been people drowned in their own secrets. Uryuu has spent his life as a swimmer struggling to tread water, first threatening to be drowned by the silence, and then by his secrets. Sometimes both at once aim to pull him under the surface where he will never feel sunlight again. He knew Ryuuken had been in the same situation, but had not known to what extent until now.

_He says he didn't, but it was still a lie. It's hardly out of character for him to withhold information—after all, it's not like I'm still unaware of my mother's _given name _or anything; no, _that _would be preposterous—but this is even worse. A whole part of his life that he never told me about, never expected me to find out about. I guess he really did want to keep me in the dark about everything, after all._

Beyond the resentment that comes about from realizing that Ryuuken has had an entire life that he concealed out of hatred, there's the feeling that he's missed something. Thanks to the parts of his life that Ryuuken kept hidden, Uryuu shared a house for more than thirteen and a half years with a stranger. He never knew him very well, but now Uryuu can see that he never knew Ryuuken at all.

_And now this…_

Long fingers tighten over his knees; his eyes burn. All too well does Uryuu remember the offer Ryuuken made him the night before. Enticing, but made with a price tag attached that Uryuu isn't sure that he wants to pay.

_Why is he doing this? _Uryuu must first examine Ryuuken's motives before he can give any thought to whether he'll accept his offer. The crow whose cries echoed through the trees flies overhead in a flurry of wings whose flaps are like heartbeats thrown at the sun. A single glossy black feather flutters noiselessly to the sidewalk, and Uryuu stares at it for a moment before extending a hand to pick it up. Uryuu runs his fingers along the silken feather and frowns pensively.

He has a hard time Ryuuken is making this offer for purely benevolent purposes. If he was, there wouldn't be such a steep price attached to the "deal." The temptation to assume that Ryuuken is offering to help him but at the same time separate him from everyone he cares about to screw with him is almost overwhelming, but Uryuu resists the urge. _Ryuuken doesn't do anything without a reason. He doesn't do things like this for laughs. There must be a reason, but I'm not sure I want to know what that reason is._

It could be to isolate him, though. Ryuuken attempted to keep Uryuu from his grandfather as a child, both to keep him from learning how to cultivate those raw abilities, and, as Uryuu suspects, to isolate him from those who could "poison his mind." That's probably not the term Ryuuken used in his own mind, but it's what it amounts to. _This is just like then, only instead of outright forbidding me to see them, he will make me _promise _not to see them._

_And if I swear not to speak to them or see them again…_

If nothing else, Ryuuken knows how to draw flies into his spider web.

The thought of having his powers back is almost too good to be true. _It could be as though it never happened. _It's frank foolishness to think for even a moment that having his Quincy powers back would erase the stamp on him of truth and revelations made in a night-darkened street. But to have back what he threw away that night would be something resembling a salve to his hurts.

_It seems that whenever I gain something, I do so by throwing something else away. _Uryuu guesses that, in the end, it all comes down to what he wants more.

_I'm nothing to anyone without my powers. I'm completely useless to them the way I am now. If I had my powers back, I could fight with them again. _With his powers back, Uryuu could protect his friends. He would no longer have to worry that they would find out that he couldn't fight anymore, and that they might reject him or shove him to the wayside where anyone else who couldn't fight was corralled. He could be a hunter again, killing Hollows. He could be himself again.

The cost is not inconsiderable. _How am I supposed to help them if I can't be around them? How am I supposed to help them if I can't even acknowledge that they exist? _Uryuu can have his powers back, but only at the cost of the reason he wants them back in the first place. He can have his powers back, but only if he never speaks to his friends again.

Losing contact with Ichigo and Orihime would be the worst of it. Uryuu never really formed anything resembling a bond with Sado. They've never had a real conversation, they aren't close, and Uryuu's not entirely sure if he can even call him a friend; he doesn't think Sado looks at him as more than an acquaintance anyways. He would of course fight alongside him without hesitation and wouldn't like the sight of him injured or dead, but Uryuu suspects that that is as far as his relationship with Sado goes. Ichigo and Orihime, on the other hand…

_One irritates me half to death and the other provokes every instinct towards protection I've ever had. I don't know them as well as friends are supposed to, they know me even less, and… And I don't think I could live my life without them. Not gladly._

In these people, Ichigo and Orihime especially, Uryuu found people who accept him, who actually care about him, even if the only way one of them is willing to show it is through shouting and irritating words. He found people that don't care that he's weird, don't care that he's an utter social misfit, people who still like him despite knowing the patently deficient person that he is. If he takes this offer of Ryuuken's, then that is a chapter of his life he can kiss goodbye. He'll go back to being alone, go back to having only his own heartbeat for company. Uryuu will have his powers back, but he'll be alone.

Well, not alone, but considering what the alternative would be, Uryuu would prefer being alone. He'll go back to the only person in his life being someone who always judges him lacking. He'll go back to never being good enough, always being inferior, deficient. Relevant only in that he's the shadow of someone Ryuuken used to have, and is still fixated on, and attracting the man's resentment for being alive in her place. _Then again, maybe I will be alone. Being around him is as good as being alone._

And still, he wants his powers back so badly…

Letting go of the feather and not watching as it settles on the park bench, Uryuu stands and walks away from the park, further into town. A piercing gust of wind cuts through his bones and he wonders when it go to be so cold, but Uryuu walks on, undaunted, not daring to let himself think.

-0-0-0-

Uryuu has been in this hospital before, but he has never gone up the elevators and the flights of stairs to the top floor, where a solitary door is situated at the end of the hall. The walk from the elevator door down the corridor seems miles long, and heartbeats hurt more, pounding harder against his ribcage, with each step.

A sharp rap later there is a "Come in" from inside and, recognizing that voice, knowing that this is the right place, and with a deep breath, Uryuu presses open the door, and steps inside.

Ryuuken's office at the hospital looks much like his office at home, if a bit bigger. It's hardly furnished apart from a desk, chair, and bookcases around the walls packed tightly with books. No personal touches at all, to the point that the nameplate on the door is the only way anyone would be able to tell who this room belongs to.

The chair creaks and Ryuuken turns his eyes from the window to look at Uryuu, an unreadable expression masking his already impassive face. "There you are," he remarks casually. That casualness disappears from his face soon enough, replaced with a businesslike, icy sheen. "Well?"

_I'll find a way some day. Some day…_

Uryuu stares at the ground, throat growing unbearably tight. The lowering afternoon sun burns on his skin. "Yes," he mutters. _I fought so hard to keep him out of my life, and for what? _The man he resents, the man he fears, the man he would sit up and wait for, the man he still wants to approve of him. He'd left of his own accord, and against his own better judgment, he's back of his own accord. _It's like sticking my leg into a bear trap when I know the trap is there, but still... Maybe I just want..._

To his own ears, Uryuu's voice is small, pathetic, and barely audible at all, but apparently it carried far enough for Ryuuken to hear it. He only grows colder, eyes narrowing as he looks Uryuu over like a spider would at a fly writhing in its web. "Say it."

_So this is what it's like to sell out. _Uryuu's mouth frames the hollow words, words that betray not only his friends but himself, words that Ryuuken accepts with a nod of the head and a calculating twist of his hard mouth. In his head and in his heart, he says a far more heartfelt goodbye to the people who brought color to his gray world.


	151. 151: Ignorant

**Title**: Ignorant**  
>AN**: If half of the combatants in _Bleach _shared Ryuuken's opinions concerning what is and isn't acceptable behavior during battle, I can't help but think that _Bleach _would probably only be about half as long as it actually is. God knows the battles would have been over a lot quicker. Once again, sorry if I screw up canon in any way.  
><strong>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>The boy is fast. Ryuuken will give him that.<p>

A few years ago, Ryuuken decided to make use of an unused storage facility underneath the hospital, using soul-synthesized silver to convert it into something else entirely. Whether this was to be a training area, some sort of bunker or something else, he hadn't known at the time, only that it was a private place, a safe haven. The door that leads down to this area is out of the way from every other room, office and cupboard in the hospital, and if anyone was ever to stumble on it, there is a '_DO NOT ENTER_' sign on the door to warn them away. Failing that, Ryuuken is the owner of the only key made to fit the lock in the door. Unlike the Shinigami, Ryuuken has no way to modify the memory of anyone who might find this room; he can't afford carelessness.

No matter the reason Ryuuken constructed this clandestine, cavernous chamber, it has a purpose now.

Jumping from a low ledge to the ground, Uryuu loses his footing, his wild eyes widening to an impossible degree, and Ryuuken watches him fall to the ground with a dull thud. "Clumsy, maladroit," he observes coolly. "You're going to have to do better than that." He starts firing again before Uryuu can fully pick himself up off the ground, but once the bolts hit at the ground around him, one whizzing by his ear, Uryuu wastes no time in starting to run again.

_How long will this keep going on?_

Ryuuken has to keep this going on until the point that Uryuu can't go on any longer, and all the while, he has to keep reminding himself that this is not a fight against a Hollow. Far from used to having to temper the force of his blows, he has to constantly check himself to limit the strength of his arrows and keep from just aiming at vital areas. Uryuu is not a Hollow, extermination is not what Ryuuken is here for, and the objective for tonight is _not _for Uryuu to end up dead or missing limbs. That would be disastrous.

Still, it's hard not to slip back into the instincts his father had been so careful to instill into him.

_He is quick on his feet. Faster than I thought he would be_, Ryuuken concedes reluctantly. From the drying splatters of blood on the floor (_I'll have to mop that up later_), it's fairly easy to tell that some of his arrows have struck true; he only deliberately misses about half of the time, and always to keep Uryuu from slowing down, so it's inevitable that there would be some injuries by now. Despite this, Uryuu keeps running.

From somewhere in the shadows, Uryuu shouts off a retort, as hotheaded as Ryuuken is cool. "Forgive me if getting hit while I was down wasn't something I expected to experience tonight."

With those words, Ryuuken knows exactly where to aim, and sure enough, Uryuu comes flying out of the shadows, darting up and down ledges, the gasps of his ragged breathing echoing eerily off of the walls. "You would be advised, Uryuu, not to speak, not unless you want me to know exactly where you are," Ryuuken remarks with deadly calm. One arrow narrowly misses Uryuu's right arm; the next grazes his leg, and though Uryuu doesn't cry out, Ryuuken only has to see blood droplets flying through the air to guess at his pain. "In games of Cat and Mouse, only the cat ought to speak. The mouse should focus more on staying out from under the cat's claws." His eyes narrow and his voice is flavored with scorn. "And do I look a Shinigami to you?"

It's clear that Uryuu's association with the Shinigami has softened him in dangerous ways, if he wasn't already this soft to begin with. From his clashes with Hollows, Uryuu ought to always be expecting a blow, even if he's down. Ryuuken resists the urge to snarl; only the Shinigami actually _wait_ for their opponents to get up (not even all of them do that), and Uryuu ought to know that.

At least another particularly bad habit of the Shinigami does _not _seem to have rubbed off on Uryuu. At least the boy, for the most part, does not stop moving when he makes these clumsy remarks.

What Ryuuken has noticed about the Shinigami is that they as a whole, tend to have something of a melodramatic streak. While he's sure that not all of them do this, the vast majority of them tend to stop fighting long enough to give their adversaries their name, rank, gory descriptions of how they're going to kill them, and sometimes the name of their zanpakuto. It's patently impractical, not to mention stupid, both because they are giving their opponent a rough idea of how powerful they are, and more importantly, when they stop to talk, they're at their most unguarded. Ryuuken suspects that at least half of the Shinigami fatalities during the last war were due to the Shinigami's tendency towards talking too much. The Quincy were far more used to fighting creatures who weren't about to stop and let them monologue, so they just shot them before the Shinigami could finish their sentences. It's what Ryuuken would have done.

_At least Uryuu hasn't been so corrupted by exposure to the Shinigami as to give speeches during battle. I hope._

Uryuu seems to like having the high ground. Ryuuken likely wouldn't notice this, except the boy keeps leaping up on the ledges and goes even higher if and when Ryuuken follows. It's practical, he supposes, for an archer to prefer the high ground; a Quincy might set up shop on a rooftop and shoot a Hollow from there, much the way a sniper would scope out their prey. However, when Ryuuken chooses to delve into memory, he remembers Uryuu as having been something of a tree climber in childhood; he absently wonders if Uryuu has continued the habit. Always staying on the high ground if he can help it is likely more of a personal preference on Uryuu's part than anything else.

_How long will this go on? _A quick glance out the window reveals the crescent moon to be rising; the sky is pitch black outside. Given that there's nothing resembling a clock in the chamber, Ryuuken can only guess what time it is, or how long this has been going on already. He tells himself that it will continue as long as it needs to.

If it was anyone but Uryuu, Ryuuken supposes he would have to allow for the possibility that the boy would give up and concede defeat before he reached total exhaustion. However, he won't have to worry. Uryuu is too proud to admit defeat any way other than passing out on the floor. If Ryuuken sees him slipping seriously, it means he's at the end of his rope; if Uryuu swallows his pride enough to resort to more desperate tactics, Ryuuken knows it's nearly time.

For now, however, Uryuu isn't at the end of his rope. He is at neither physical nor mental nor spiritual exhaustion. He's not tired enough for Ryuuken to administer the final blow. This will go on until Uryuu can't anymore. Uryuu won't stop until then, and neither will Ryuuken. Ryuuken gets visions of shooting Uryuu in the chest with the boy collapsed on the ground, barely breathing, and decides that if he must do that, he will. It doesn't matter if Uryuu is conscious or not when the final blow is struck, so long as it is.

He has no intention of going easy on the boy who was so foolish as to gamble away his powers.

The harsh squeak of shoe soles on smooth, hard floors alerts Ryuuken to Uryuu's location. A few arrows in the boy's direction, one wounding his arm but the rest impacting in to the wall, which unlike Uryuu will regenerate soon enough, gives, quite clearly, Ryuuken's opinion of his inability to keep quiet.

"It's your own fault in the end, you know. The fact that you're here, I mean." His voice echoes eerily off of the shadowy walls, a chorus of a thousand dating back to one man. There's no answer from the gathering shadows, but Ryuuken can imagine Uryuu's temper coming to a fine boil. "If you had shown a bit more discretion, more common sense, then neither of us would be here. I wouldn't have to do this. Why don't you just swallow your pride and admit fault for once, Uryuu?"

"You talk as though you actually regret this." Uryuu's ragged voice holds a decidedly scornful edge; Ryuuken can guess at the ugly scowl tugging at his thin mouth. "You seemed to be just fine with this a minute ago."

Uryuu's words are met with arrows, and again the boy motivates himself to run.

This is necessary, absolutely necessary, and Ryuuken never loses sight of it, never gives in to the instinct to tell Uryuu to stop when he sees blood hit the floor and go over to examine his cuts. Still, his disdain mounts for this ignorant child. _You understand nothing_, Ryuuken thinks bitterly, redoubling his attacks. _Nothing._


	152. 152: Trust

**Title**: Trust**  
>AN**: Hello.  
><strong>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>Just out of curiosity, Uryuu dares to turn his attention back towards the direction where his senses had told him the Shinigami were clashing with an unknown force. Well, there's concern as well; if there's a fight going on and there's Shinigami involved, Ichigo's probably in the middle of it. <em>I hope he's alright. Kurosaki does have a habit of inserting himself into every brawl, battle and fray in Karakura Town, whether he ought to or not. Wonder how he'll be when he finds out he missed out on this one.<em>

Uryuu pulls a grimace. _No, wait. He _won't _find out about this one. He won't find out about it because I can't tell him, _Uryuu reminds himself bitterly. _I can't talk to him at all. I have to look straight through him when he's in my line of sight. I have to behave as though he doesn't exist._

It was only a moment more that Uryuu spared thought for the battle taking place somewhere outside, but apparently that moment is too long for Ryuuken's liking. Hand clasped painfully tight around his elbow, he jerks Uryuu roughly away from the window.

"Do not waste your attention on the Shinigami!" Ryuuken snaps, eyes sparking with the beginnings of cold fire. "They are doing just fine without you. You would be advised to focus your attention on the task at hand."

As the night wears on, Uryuu has been catching signs of Ryuuken's temper and patience starting to wear thin. This is only proof of that, and though Uryuu has always known he's capable of losing his temper, it is perhaps a bit reassuring to see that he is human after all, that the steely mask is capable of cracking.

Well, perhaps more terrifying than reassuring. Uryuu has better cause than perhaps anyone else alive to know that Ryuuken is one of the last people he wants to lose his temper, especially under the circumstances. From here, Uryuu can only expect the attacks to grow more vicious, the jabs more incisive. _This is the consequence of driving him to this point. Let's just hope I survive the night._

To his credit, Ryuuken waits until Uryuu gets about ten feet away from him before resuming the onslaught. Uryuu dives behind a wall nursing a new wound, a slash in his side, panting. His eyes water, but he doesn't dare slide to the floor. Uryuu doesn't like to think of what would happen if Ryuuken was to come upon him slumped against the wall. _That, I suspect, would be the end of me._

In this rare moment of peace, Uryuu takes the opportunity to again marvel at his surroundings. When he had first been led down to this chamber (_Who knew there was this much room underneath the hospital_), his first thought had been to wonder _Why did he build this place_? The answer, Uryuu supposes, is that it could have been somewhere private for Ryuuken to keep his skills up to snuff, somewhere he wouldn't be stumbled upon. _Maybe that's why he would come home so late some nights. _Of course, Uryuu's very next question was _When would he have had the _time _to build this place?, _and that's something that still mystifies him.

Of course, Ryuuken finds him soon enough. He has the advantage of knowing the layout of this place far better than Uryuu, has keener senses, and can probably hear his labored breathing from all the way across the room. Uryuu barely escapes the bolts of silver light, and finds himself choking down bile as he forces himself to keep running.

"Slowing down?" Ryuuken calls out. To hear him speak, it would be as though they were holding a polite conversation over tea in a coffee shop. The truth is anything but. "I can't imagine you're faring too well after all this time, especially considering there's so much blood on the floor."

Standing just out of sight in the shadows gathering at the wall, Uryuu bites his tongue to keep from answering.

"So silent? What's the matter, Uryuu? Don't you trust me?" he jeers, referring back to an exchange of maybe five minutes ago with his last question.

_No, I don't, _Uryuu all but retorts, instead choosing to take this respite for all its worth. The longer it takes Ryuuken to find him, the better. If Ryuuken wants to take cheap shots, that's his issue, his hang-up. Uryuu needs time to rethink his plan of action for the situation he's fallen into.

He can't bring himself to trust Ryuuken, not under the circumstances. _You ask me to trust you, but it turns out you've been lying to me my whole life, locking away a huge part of your life from prying eyes, denying that it exists even to me. How can I trust you? You were never open with me; how can I possibly trust you?_

More and more, Uryuu has to question the validity of this whole "method." Ryuuken has said that he will have his powers back when he reaches a state of total exhaustion, but he never bothered to explain _how _this would lead to his powers returning. Instead, he opened fire without warning, leaving at least one highly vital question unasked and unanswered. Uryuu doesn't think Ryuuken would answer now if confronted with the question. If he had ever planned on giving Uryuu an explanation, let alone an adequate, he would have done so _before _he started shooting.

With no earthly explanation for how running around like a mouse in a laboratory maze, trying his very best not to get shot, is ever going to give him his powers back, Uryuu starts to contemplate another reason he might have been brought down here. Nothing about this situation makes sense. _He might… _Uryuu swallows and forces himself to finish that thought. _He might just be trying to kill me._

That, Uryuu likes to think, is probably not it, and probably just a teenager's inclination towards melodrama talking. As bad as things get, as intent as they are on pushing each other away, hurting each other, Uryuu has to believe that Ryuuken would never try to kill him. He has to believe that, or else his already fractured world, the world he tried to tried so hard to rebuild, will shatter all over again. _He wouldn't be trying to kill me. If he did kill me, people would notice me missing eventually; if nothing else, my landlady would notice after a couple of months that I wasn't paying the bills. He wouldn't try to kill me. Wouldn't he?_

Still, there aren't too many other conclusions Uryuu can come to. If Ryuuken was gunning to kill him, this would be the place to do it. No one but he and Ryuuken know that this chamber exists; if Uryuu died here, Ryuuken could wall the place up and no one would ever know his body rested here, rotting on the silver floors. Oh yes, the police would look at Ryuuken initially, both because of his relationship to the missing person and because he's suffered a few more tragedies in his life than what could be considered natural. However, in the absence of any evidence, eventually they would stop looking at him, and Ryuuken would go on with his life. Uryuu has no doubt that Ryuuken could come here for work every day for the rest of his life, knowing that his son's desiccated corpse rested several floors below.

_That doesn't matter right now_. Uryuu shakes his head and frowns grimly. _It doesn't matter_. Whether Ryuuken is trying to kill him or not, he will operate on the assumption that murder is not on his attacker's mind. Still, Uryuu gets the impression that there's a very good chance he'll be dead by the time the sun rises again whether or not that's Ryuuken's intent.

Uryuu has more immediate concerns than Ryuuken possibly trying to kill him. He's not going to be able to keep this up much longer. _Half an hour, an hour at most, before I'm so weak I can't move. I've got to keep on, got to find a way to stop this fight._

A physical attack would be nothing short of insanity, perhaps suicidal insanity. Getting close enough to Ryuuken to punch or kick or bite opens him up to a devastating attack, and Uryuu can't ignore the fact that while he is injured, bruised, bleeding, all that's happened to Ryuuken is that he's gotten a bit tired. The fact that he's bigger than him—not much (_Uryuu had been so surprised, that night in the park, to realize that he was almost on eye level with him_), but enough—doesn't help either, and even discounting all of this, Uryuu can't quite do it. He can't quite bring himself to that point.

It's at moments like this that Uryuu's glad he brought those ginto tubes with him today. However, he's reluctant to use them. He doesn't have too many left, and once they're gone, they're gone. Uryuu won't have anything left but the empty silver shells and a feeling of bitter regret, if he lives long enough to get to that feeling. He'll have to save the silver tubes for the direst hour of need.

A bolt of blinding silver, illuminating the walls in unearthly light and banishing the shadows, tells Uryuu that he has been found out, and he darts away, skirting the walls and praying for relief. This is the logical conclusion of all of their interactions up to this point—two combatants, with the battle on a far deadlier scale than anything they experienced before—and the logical conclusion of what Uryuu suspects training would have been like as a child if Ryuuken had ever taken interest in that part of his life. He counts his heartbeats, scopes out Ryuuken's location and tries as hard as he can to run from the man without losing sight of him. He can feel eyes burning into his back, and when he turns, he sees a soundless snarl contorting his jaw.

_Can't keep this up forever. _His heart is pounding out of rhythm, battering against his ribs. Blood rushes in his ears, head spinning. _Not forever._


	153. 153: Dead

**Title**: Dead  
><strong>AN**: And here is the conclusion of the first training session.  
><strong>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>"<em>If you're going to call me a coward," Uryuu gasps, barely able to find breath to give to the words, "say it where I can hear it." Ryuuken remains impassive as cut marble and Uryuu doesn't think he's ever come so close to hating someone for a lack of reaction as he does him now. "Don't try to make it sound like something else."<em>

_Ryuuken's only answer is to resume the assault—far more effective than words—and Uryuu can barely bring himself to run again._

Heart screaming, blood falling fast and loose from his skin, Uryuu knows it's almost time.

_I have… I have… I think, five minutes, probably. Probably five minutes; I certainly don't have ten. _Uryuu struggles to organize his scattered thoughts. _It's going to be soon now._

All he wants to do is fall down and sleep. He's been in here for hours (Days? Weeks? Eons? There's no way to keep track of time in here and Uryuu has long-since suspected that the perception of time is one of the first things to go in exhaustion) and he's felt blackness creeping on the edges of his awareness for what Uryuu can only describe as 'forever.'

His legs don't want to work right; muscles scream and ache with each move. Since the last time Uryuu wasn't able to keep himself from falling to the ground (he was only able to use ginto with the most recent), his chest has ached horribly, and Uryuu can't be sure if it's simply the soreness of a hard landing or possibly broken ribs. He prays for the former.

There is a mercy in all of this, but Uryuu doesn't think it will be enough to save him. Ryuuken is starting to slow down as well, the long hours taking a toll on him the same as they do his son. However, he shows no sign of stopping any time soon, and Uryuu knows that Ryuuken could go on for longer than him. _After all, he hasn't been running for his life all night. He's just been shooting at me, which, I will admit, can be pretty tiring in itself; I ought to know. He might be getting tired too, but I'll be completely spent long before he is. I've got to find a way to stop this fight before that happens._

Uryuu doesn't think he could find the strength needed to punch or kick if he tried. It's all he can do to keep running; a physical attack is beyond his capacity at this point. Blows from the body would barely make a mark.

It doesn't change the fact, however, that it has never been more important than it is now that Uryuu find some way to stop this fight. He does suspect that he'll be dead before the night is out if he does not, regardless of Ryuuken's intentions, and there are so many ways Uryuu would rather die than forgotten in a hidden chamber. If he dies, he'd like for someone other than his killer to know. He doesn't want to just go missing, never to be found again. He'd like someone to remember him.

_I still have one silver tube left. _Uryuu doesn't care what Ryuuken tries to imply; there's no shame in using ginto in battle, nothing cowardly about it. If there was, Uryuu wouldn't have bothered to learn it and he suspects that his grandfather wouldn't have left such extensive notes behind to _allow _him to learn it. It's the only advantage he has in a fight against someone able to go on for hours without cease. He's sorely outmatched and any advantage Uryuu can take over Ryuuken, he will, glad that he'd thought to bring the last of his silver tubes with him when he'd come today.

It'll have to be now, and it'll have to be quick; Uryuu has to get dangerously close to Ryuuken in order to perform the technique he has in mind, and he can't afford to waste a second. Clutching the smooth silver tube in his sweaty hand, Uryuu holds the words in his mind and drops down in front of his attacker.

Perhaps vindictively, Uryuu can't help but take a _great _deal of pleasure in the genuinely alarmed look that comes over Ryuuken's usually impassive face. _Nice to know he can be caught unawares like the rest of us. _"The silver whip falls and strikes the five-stoned floor—" _Why are these call spells so long; couldn't they have thought up call spells that didn't take so long that someone could easily kill us while we were shouting them out? _"—Gritz!"

All falls silent, and Uryuu heaves a sigh of relief. "Thank God," he gasps.

_Thank you, Sensei, for leaving those notes where I could find them._

Gritz, as Uryuu learned from the notes his grandfather left behind on ginto, is a technique that imprisons the one it's used on inside of a barrier. It's apparently at its most effective when the user is at full-strength, so Uryuu doesn't know how long it will last. Something else, an offensive technique, or an imprisoning attack that drains the attacker of their spiritual power, might have been safer in this situation, but Uryuu's mind jumped to Gritz before he could think of anything else.

_He might have been gunning for my head, but forgive me if I won't act like him._

Uryuu isn't sure how long he has before the barrier dissolves and Ryuuken resumes his attack. Hopefully it will be long enough for Uryuu to leave the chamber. He'll get up to leave in a second—he thinks he can manage that. He just needs to catch his breath.

A second, as it turns out, was too late.

Barely five seconds after he trapped Ryuuken inside of the barrier, Uryuu watches, to his horror, as that same barrier begins to dissolve. _Not now. It's too soon. I can't run. I can't move. I have to, but I can barely feel my legs. Just give me a minute longer; that's all I ask._

A mocking voice crashes against Uryuu's ears and ghostly silver flame flashes against his glasses. "What a shame, it's over."

What happens next happens too fast for Uryuu to keep track of. An arrow connects with flesh and blinding, white-hot pain like fire brought to the skin erupts on his chest. As Uryuu flies back through the air, the gleaming silver room starts to lose its form to darkness.

_He got me. Great, I'm dead. Congratulations, you got me. Happy?_

The floor rises up to meet him, but Uryuu is swallowed by black oblivion before he can feel it.


	154. 154: Softhearted

**Title**: Softhearted**  
>AN**: This expands on the tail-end of chapter 226. The next chapter will as well. It's funny (or maybe not so funny) how everyone else thinks Uryuu is a bit coldhearted, while his father thinks he's too soft. Ryuuken's thoughts are all over the place here. I apologize for that, but it was what I was trying to accomplish to begin with; I only hope I did it well.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>For a moment, Ryuuken can believe that he is looking on a corpse with the spark of life totally extinguished. Uryuu's breathing is so shallow that one wouldn't be able to tell that he's breathing at all without close examination. His skin is waxen, as white as snow, entire body bathed in sweat.<p>

The expected wound, five-pronged and livid is there. Huge gouge marks on the middle of Uryuu's chest, scarlet, sluggishly oozing blood. The copper tang of blood starts to rise in the air along with the stench of sweat and Ryuuken, getting to his feet but still leaning over him, resists the urge to curl his lip in a sneer. "You're so frustrating," he mutters, shaking his head.

_Honestly, what was he thinking_,_ using that particular call spell? _

Considering the circumstances, Heisen would have been a far more practical use of ginto than Gritz. Ryuuken isn't particularly well-schooled in ginto. He never had any interest in the area and his father declared him "too straightforward" to ever really have interest in it. However, Soken had also made sure Ryuuken knew the basics—how to utilize ginto, tactical use—and Ryuuken does know what Uryuu should have been doing.

For one, ginto isn't something a Quincy uses when alone against their adversary. Back in the days when there were still enough to do that, Quincy never hunted alone; they always went in groups of at least two or three. If ginto was used against a Hollow, it was usually one Quincy distracting the Hollow while the other set up the call spells. You never used ginto if you were alone against a Hollow; you either shot at it and proceeded to run, or you just ran outright.

For another, defensive call spells aren't something to be used when the Quincy in question is weakened or exhausted. Gritz is a technique that, if Uryuu had used it when he was still at peak capacity, should have imprisoned Ryuuken for several hours at least; instead, Uryuu had used it when he was at the point of collapse, and the barrier had dissipated within seconds. On the other hand, Heisen is a nasty offensive technique even when used by someone on the verge of passing out. If Uryuu had used Heisen when at full capacity, it might very well have killed Ryuuken; at the very least, if he'd used it at the last, Ryuuken probably would have been too distracted by the sudden appearance of a gaping wound to have shot Uryuu.

_Where did he even learn ginto, anyway? _Ryuuken wonders in irritation. _The old man wouldn't have had the time to have taught him that. What time Father had training Uryuu would have been spent on the basics; ginto isn't something you teach a small child to begin with._

He'd dropped out of nowhere in front of him. Ryuuken frowns, eyes narrowing, as he starts to think, and remembers.

Uryuu had landed feet away from Ryuuken, and God knows he must have been insanely desperate to have been willing to get that close to him, considering the state he was in by that time. Though he hates to admit it, Ryuuken had been stunned, too stunned to lifts his arms and shoot, as Uryuu pulled out a silver tube and shouted an incantation.

Ryuuken had been expecting Heisen. For Uryuu to get that close to him when he was bleeding, exhausted, on the verge of total collapse, he ought to have been using an offensive technique that even if it wouldn't have been at full-strength would have at least left Ryuuken in much the same state as his target.

No. Instead, Uryuu behaved true to form and chose to take the course of action that made the absolute least sense. Despite having to have known that he wouldn't be able to get away in time, he used a defensive technique instead, a barrier technique that Ryuuken broke through in seconds. Gritz imprisoned him in a small barrier of silence and darkness, but it's not something that puts him out of commission, and Uryuu ought to have known that.

_He used a defensive technique. _Ryuuken reaches up to wipe the vague sheen of sweat off of his face wearily. _Oh, idiot. _Uryuu shouldn't have ever gotten that close to him when he was within seconds of passing out if he wasn't going to use a technique that would properly incapacitate him. Heisen had been the only real choice in such a situation, but Uryuu had chosen a harmless barrier. _Harmless…_Weariness is even more intense than before, sticking to his bones like glue. _He used the technique that wouldn't wound. _

_He used the attack that would not wound. The weakness of the human heart is not something that Uryuu can afford to indulge in, not if he wishes to survive his battles. He will face very few foes who _aren't _trying to kill him, and if he uses defensive call spells against them_…

Uryuu is an idiot. That much Ryuuken knows all too well. What he also knows now is that the boy is even more dangerously softhearted than he had originally thought. _He used a defensive call spell. Would he use that in a real battle, as well? Would he use that on a real enemy?_

Ryuuken remembers other people who would have likely used a defensive call spell when in Uryuu's situation as well. They were softhearted too, at least as far as Ryuuken is concerned, and Uryuu was always more like them than like him anyways. Always more likely to meet his death at the end of teeth and claws, because of a softhearted concern for those beyond their own power to help. And Uryuu is just like them.

It's hard to believe that, even though it's always frustrated him, he once considered it an endearing trait as well. Well, sort of. There'd been the terror as well.

"_Does it ever bother you that you have a near-death experience at least three times a week?"_

"_Ooh, snippy." There's a sharp note in Sayuri's voice. Her fingers are paused over the fastenings on her shirt, a process made clumsy not by the darkness (she has more than a little experience getting dressed and undressed in the dark) but by the bandages wrapped securely over her hand. Of course, it's too dark for Ryuuken to know this for sure, but he can guess. "Is this the "I've had less than six hours' sleep in the past two days" talking?_"

_Ryuuken winces. It's entirely too late at night, and neither one of them are quite so even-tempered as they would be if they'd had a good night's sleep behind them. "My point stands," he mutters. The sagging bedsprings squeak as Sayuri slides her shirt off her shoulders and lies down, pulling the threadbare bedclothes up over her_._ "You can only cheat Death so many times before It calls to collect Its dues."_

_Again, the bedsprings squeal in protest as Sayuri pulls closer to him. "Well then…" She sounds more tired than sharp now, the hint of a thin smile in her voice "…I'll just keep on playing Death for a fool until I'm ready to go, and I assure you, Ryuuken, I'm not ready now."_

_He sighs. "You're either suicidal or incredibly brave." _The heating unit is late turning on, _Ryuuken realizes. In the absence of that humming, the silence is all but overwhelming. "I'm not entirely sure which."_

"_I don't like the sound of suffering," she replies quietly. That voice is too quiet, even for Sayuri's normally soft voice. "You know that."_

Yes, I do know that about you. _His wife, the idealist. Of course, she wouldn't be the same woman, but still… _

_Ryuuken doesn't say any of that. "You worry me." That terse admission, given only with difficulty, is what he chooses to express instead. It's not complete, not all he could have said, but it's the most he can manage._

"_Do you think you don't worry me?" A tense note enters her voice. "Ryuuken, you don't _eat. _We are in debt, but you don't need to starve yourself. Which one of us do you think is running themselves into the grave faster?"_

_Maybe it's guilt he's feeling that keeps him talking. It's more likely to be that than the urge to resolve this quasi-argument so he can sleep; given the hours the two keep, a good majority of Ryuuken and Sayuri's conversations take place in the dark at odd hours of the night to begin with. "…I know." The words are still dragged out. "…I'm sorry. But I just…" He trails off, stuck struggling for words. He doesn't want her to die, and there's very little else that Ryuuken can think about when he pictures Sayuri going after Hollows_. _There's no way to articulate that plain, unembellished truth that Ryuuken can find._

"_I know." Sayuri sounds so tired that she may as well be on the edge of a state of slumbering death. She's as tired of this conversation, going round and round in circles, as he is, wanting nothing more than to sleep. He can feel the pressure of her pressing her cheek against his shoulder. "Let's just try to get some sleep."_

Ryuuken doubts that anything he said to her could have made Sayuri stop. It was just too much an indelible part of her life. Uryuu is the same as his mother, but he doesn't have the level of training, nor the experience. He has only stubbornness, his pride, the stupidity that tells him he can go against a Hollow the way he is and survive, his grandfather's encouragement, and a heart entirely too soft.

_Trying to help the dead when he can't even help himself. Giving up his abilities in a fit of anger. Putting on that damned glove in the first place, in the attempt to help a girl he barely knows. Oh, you fool. You insane, suicidal fool_.

All his life, Ryuuken has been surrounded by idealists. He's never understood how they can cling to that idealism when reality is something so incredibly bleak. He's never understood how they can keep such soft hearts within them, when blood and suffering around them demands a heart so much harder.

The crescent moon gleams overhead through the window, seeping across the floor. _Idealists all around, and a fool in front of me. And you, Uryuu, you I can not understand. You just seem intent on rushing towards your own death. _Ryuuken heaves a heavy sigh.

"_Things look very different if you just tell yourself that no matter how much it seems that way, the world really _isn't _out to get you," she remarks with a lopsided grin. "It's much easier to get up in the morning with that in mind."_

"But I think…" He stares long and hard at his son, lying limp on the ground and bleeding sluggishly. Uryuu looks younger without his glasses, more childlike, not the weird amalgamation of child and adult he appears to be otherwise. _Another softhearted idealist. _"…I think I can overlook it, for tonight," Ryuuken says quietly.


	155. 155: Odds

**Title**: Odds**  
>AN**: Since this follows canon, I know there's no real peril, but I tried my best anyways. No room for half-measures in this house.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>Careful to avoid the discarded silver tubes scattered across the floor, Ryuuken leans down to pluck up Uryuu's glasses, examining. It looks to be just one of the lenses that was damaged when they hit the ground after flying off of Uryuu's face, cracked jaggedly. It should be easily enough repaired; the eye clinic upstairs offers repairs even at this time of night (<em>morning?<em>) and don't ask probing questions. It's just a matter of replacing the lens; Ryuuken can be gone and back before Uryuu ever wakes up.

Tucking the glasses away, Ryuuken leans down to check Uryuu's pulse again. Shallow, erratic; no more so than thirty seconds ago, the last time he checked. Ryuuken grimaces and shakes his head. Uryuu's pulse is showing no signs of evening out, just like he shows no sign of waking up. Still so very much out cold, eyes screwed shut, hair sticking to his neck, mouth slightly open, wounded chest barely rising. He shows no signs of waking, and Ryuuken starts to have his doubts.

_No sign of waking. His heart rate isn't getting any better_. Ryuuken squares his jaw grimly and finds himself checking Uryuu's pulse for the umpteenth time since the boy fell to the ground unconscious. _Same. Did you expect any different?_

_But surely he's too stubborn to die. _Frustrated, Ryuuken shakes off that thought. "Stubborn" doesn't get you anywhere if you're injured badly enough, and an arrow to the chest is _still _an arrow to the chest no matter what the circumstances. Uryuu's had other injuries besides, and no matter how much he would prefer to conceal it he's always been just a little frail. It doesn't help that, just by looking at him, Ryuuken can tell that Uryuu is quite underweight; being slightly built only accounts for so much. That would cause problems on its own, but now… Stubborn Uryuu may be, but being stubborn won't save him if his body decides to give out on him.

Ryuuken doesn't think that Uryuu ever would have consented to having his powers restored this way if he had known exactly what it entailed. As reckless as the boy is, Ryuuken likes to think that Uryuu is in possession of enough self-preservation instincts to balk at any plan that involves shooting him dangerously close to his heart, especially considering who the shooter would be under such circumstances. And there's not just that to consider.

There is no known technique that addresses the Sanrei Glove exactly in terms of reversing the effects. _There wouldn't be_, Ryuuken thinks with a grimace, _considering that no one ever survived long enough after removing one for a method reversing the effects to be developed. _Instead, Ryuuken had to draw off of something he read in the notes he took from his father's house after the old man died.

In times past, there are records of Quincy sometimes losing access to their abilities after being injured by a Hollow. Such a thing was highly unlikely to happen, and out of the ones who did, they were only slightly more likely to survive immediately afterwards than the users of a Sanrei Glove, given that if a Quincy suddenly loses access to their powers in the middle of battle, they're probably going to end up dead in the maw of the Hollow who did it. No one ever really figured out why a Hollow bite or any other sort of wound inflicted by a Hollow was sometimes capable of cutting off a Quincy's access to their abilities. Ryuuken supposes it could have been some sort of defensive reaction on the part of the body in response to the trauma, but without a live subject, he wouldn't know.

Pulse is taken again. _Still irregular, choppy. Not as strong as it should be._

Even without knowing why being wounded by a Hollow could cause a Quincy to lose access to their abilities, eventually a treatment was developed. Personally, Ryuuken isn't sure why any Quincy would have been testing out shooting another Quincy in the chest, but he supposes he should be grateful. It provided him with an avenue to reverse the effect of the Sanrei Glove on Uryuu, at least.

_There were problems, though. _Ryuuken's hand strays to Uryuu's neck once more, and comes up with the same results. His eyes narrow at the resounding silence as he remembers more of what the records had shown him about this particular technique.

All of the possible complications are difficult to overlook. For one, the Quincy doing the shooting absolutely _had _to hit the target nineteen millimeters to the right of the heart. If they missed by so much as a millimeter in any direction, the target would certainly die. This, Ryuuken isn't so worried about. Lucky for Uryuu, his aim has not dulled over the years; if anything, it's gotten better with experience.

The other complications, however, are beyond Ryuuken's control. According to the records (and Ryuuken so wishes that Soken had written something about where he'd gotten these numbers from), even when the shooter had perfect aim and struck the target exactly nineteen millimeters to the right of the heart, there was still about only a one in four chance that they would actually survive, given that taking a Quincy's arrow to the middle of the chest generally proves fatal for most human beings. Ryuuken may certainly have been pulling his punches to keep from accidentally killing Uryuu, but even so…

What makes Ryuuken even less sure of exactly what he's accomplished here is the glaring truth that the technique he used on Uryuu was designed to address a different problem than the problem Uryuu has. The Quincy who suddenly lost access to their abilities after being wounded by a Hollow didn't lose their spiritual energy or awareness; they just couldn't harness it anymore. Those who used a Sanrei Glove, on the other hand, both lost access to their abilities _and _their spiritual energy and awareness, and as a result died rather soon afterwards, if they weren't killed by a Shinigami first.

If he had waited a few months longer, Ryuuken has little doubt that what he has done tonight wouldn't have worked. What he's hoping for instead is that Uryuu still has enough spiritual energy that the arrow provided enough of a jolt to bring his spiritual energy back to life. That was how the technique was supposed to work in the first place; if a Quincy was brought to utter exhaustion, the arrow to the chest was supposed to force the channels back open given that, at that point, a Quincy could rely only on their spiritual energy tethering them to flesh to keep from dying.

_But it's not the same thing here. He may not have had enough spirit energy left for this to work. He might not wake up like some of the others. What are the odds? One in four. Good grief. _Ryuuken resists the urge to slap his forehead. "I may have just killed my kid," he mutters_. _"Good God."

He stretches out his hand to feel for pulses once again, and upon withdrawing his hand back to himself, Ryuuken feels his throat grow very dry.

Ryuuken can tell himself that, while what he did to Uryuu might kill him, if he hadn't intervened, Uryuu certainly would have died, either in a Hollow's belly or from the eventual total loss of his spiritual awareness. Telling himself that doesn't stop his heart from the steady hammering it does against his rib cage, threatening to break the bones. It doesn't keep the silence from wearing on his shoulders, ringing accusations in his ears, or threatening to choke him at the throat.

"You may choose to die, Uryuu," Ryuuken says, very quietly, exerting every ounce of effort to maintain an even voice, "just to spite me. I can easily imagine you doing something like that, in times of extremity." Drawing a deep breath and swallowing, he goes on. "But if you never trust my word again, understand now that that…" _Why is it always so hard to remember to breathe? _"…That killing you was not my intent. It was not what I wanted. And if you wish to spite me—" his voice grows harder "—I'm sure you can find more creative ways of doing so than simply dying."

Willing himself to look away, Ryuuken starts towards the door out. He has to get Uryuu's glasses fixed, and the more time he wastes, the later they will be repaired. _I'd be able to feel if he was dying. I'd know._

The image of Uryuu waking up alone, wounded, and virtually blind without his glasses for a moment tugs at his consciousness, bothering Ryuuken in a way he'd rather not give voice to, but he doesn't let the thought control him. Ryuuken won't have to leave him alone for too long, and he tells himself that there won't be any danger, that if something is wrong he'll be able to sense it, and that nothing will go wrong.

Uryuu won't be awake for a while yet (_If he wakes up at all_). He isn't going anywhere.


	156. 156: Words

**Title**: Words**  
>AN**: In which Uryuu proves that, as much as Ryuuken can disturb him, it works both ways. I'm expanding on a scene I wrote in a much-earlier oneshot, _Islands in the Sea, _that I wanted to preserve.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>A soft groan claws its way out of Uryuu's throat, and however soft it is, against the silence of the spacious chamber, it may as well be a shout to Ryuuken's ears. Pale, veined eyelids lift with the sort of difficulty that Ryuuken had thought could only be achieved with the application of leaden weights.<p>

Ryuuken watches, silent, as Uryuu, over the course of at least two and a half minutes, finally managed to get his palms out and prop himself up. It seemed that his limbs aren't wanting to work, but if he can move, it means there's likely nothing seriously wrong.

The moment Uryuu manages to sit up, Ryuuken drops to his knees beside him, putting his hands on either side of the boy's head. "Are you dizzy?" he asks clinically.

Uryuu only looks at him like he's lost his mind, clamping his mouth tightly shut. Ryuuken bites back a gusty sigh and goes on. "Do you see lights in front of your eyes? Do you feel nauseated? Is there any sort of ringing in your ears?" Given that Uryuu landed head first, Ryuuken thinks it advisable to check to see if he sustained a concussion and head off any of the unpleasantness that would stem from that.

Silence follows.

"Uryuu, are you even listening?"

For the longest time, Uryuu says nothing. He looks at Ryuuken with bleary, clouded blue eyes, for once utterly unreadable. Then, something hideous passes over his face and he mutters, head bowed and voice barely audible to the human ear, "Please… Please don't touch me."

Barely managing to keep from snarling, Ryuuken does as Uryuu asks, and backs away.

The sight of Uryuu struggling to his feet is a genuinely pitiable one, but Ryuuken makes no move to help him; if Uryuu doesn't want to be touched, he won't be. His legs wobble as though the bones have been replaced with limp rubber, uncooperative and clearly not listening to a single command Uryuu's brain tries to give. Both crumple beneath him at least once before he manages to clamber to a standing position. Even then, he lurches back and forth, coming dangerously close to finding himself reacquainted with the floor.

Once he's stood and righted himself, Uryuu starts to look around for his glasses, and there comes a noticeable hitch in his already ragged breathing when they are nowhere to be found; Ryuuken can practically hear his pulse starting to race as his darting eyes take on a sheen of panic. Wordlessly, Ryuuken draws Uryuu's now-repaired glasses from his jacket and holds them out. The way Uryuu snatches them from his grip implies anything but gratitude.

Reunited with his glasses, Uryuu finally looks down to examine the livid, five-pronged wound on his chest. "What have you done?" he demands, fingering the by-now scabbed over gouge marks on his chest gingerly.

To this, Ryuuken raises his eyebrows and folds his arms about his chest. _You're telling me you haven't noticed? _"Notice anything different?" Impossible to keep the biting note from his voice, he can only shake his head in weariness at Uryuu's lack of awareness. _If you can't even sense your own spiritual pressure…_

Dark eyes widen as awareness dawns. Ryuuken doesn't expect thanks, or words of gratitude—he knows Uryuu and the way they tear at each other too well to expect anything resembling gratitude—so he is not surprised by what he is met with instead. Uryuu's eyes narrow in an almost sullen glare. "You could have warned me," he points out reproachfully.

_Yes, and you never would have agreed to this if I had. _"What exactly did you think I had done?"

Though he had expected the reproach, Ryuuken does not expect what Uryuu chooses to answer with.

For a long time, Uryuu says nothing, as though he has to drum up the courage needed to speak. His eyes are shadowed, unfathomable, peering at him out of half-closed eyelids and a curtain of thick eyelashes. "I thought…" He swallows heavily before going on, his soft voice one of the loudest things Ryuuken has ever heard. "…I thought that you had killed me," Uryuu explains matter-of-factly, "and put me out of your misery."

-0-0-0-

As it turns out, Uryuu had survived the final blow after all.

Ryuuken finds himself sitting at the kitchen table after a few hours' stolen sleep. The cup of coffee between his hand sits untouched, pristine. He finally lifts it to his lips for the first gulp and finds it lukewarm; he'd kept it out too long. Ryuuken drinks anyway, too much in need of the jolt provided by the caffeine to care that, to his palate, lukewarm coffee tastes disgusting.

A cigarette wouldn't be minded, to ease his troubled heartbeat, but Ryuuken can find no motivation to move from his chair, and after all this time, he still doesn't smoke in the house. Funny, that; he had agreed to smoke outside or to at least stick his head out a window when smoking at the behest of other people, but now that he lives alone, he still can't bring himself to smoke inside.

Come to mention it, when Uryuu had left, that had been the first time Ryuuken had really lived alone. For the first eighteen years of his life, he had lived under the roof of his childhood home. After that, there was only a couple of months worth of solitude in the apartment he rented before Kurosaki Isshin came into his life and insisted on crashing on Ryuuken's couch. Once he was married, it was him and Sayuri together. After she died, there was still Uryuu. And then, Uryuu left.

Ryuuken wonders if maintaining his smoking habit as though he still shared the house with someone is some sort of coping mechanism.

Uryuu lived through the physical trauma of being shot in the middle of the chest at close range, and has gotten his powers back in the bargain. Ryuuken sent him home with his repaired glasses, the discarded silver tubes, and the gray jacket (likely part of the school uniform) he had had the boy leave in his office—something to put on over the tattered remnants of his shirt—and told him to be back in two days. _"Five in the afternoon, and no later than that."_

Though for a moment he looked as though there was nothing he would like better than to argue, Uryuu had simply nodded when told to come back, and left without another word, limping slightly as he mounted the stairs outside. No one could have looked more tired than he did, shoulders bowed and eyes drooping.

And Ryuuken still remembers his words.

_He thought I had been aiming to kill him, all that time? That's really what he thought? How, exactly…_

There are many things that Ryuuken could have said to Uryuu, when he revealed what he had thought going down with a gaping wound on his chest. Many things rang through his mind at the revelation of "_I thought you had killed me_" but he couldn't give voice to any of them. Uryuu had effectively accomplished what few have been able to: rendering Ryuuken speechless. He's done it before, but never so profoundly as the silence he had reduced Ryuuken to last night. He hadn't been able to address it, hadn't been able to snap off a retort or give an explanation. Nothing at all, just stunned silence.

In retrospect, Ryuuken recognizes that silence was inadvisable to the answer (unfortunately a completely truthful one, he has no doubt) that Uryuu had given him. He should have said something, even if it was nothing more than a sincere, if somewhat contemptuous, "_Of course I wasn't trying to kill you; if I was I would have done so immediately." _Perhaps it wouldn't have hurt after all to give Uryuu some sort of explanation beforehand; he might have accepted what Ryuuken was planning on doing with a detailed explanation of how it was supposed to work. Maybe if Ryuuken had said something, anything at all, before or afterwards, than maybe Uryuu wouldn't have thought—

_No. _Ryuuken grimaces hideously, draining the coffee cup. _Uryuu comes to whatever conclusion makes sense to him, no matter how little sense it makes to anyone else. There's nothing I could say to him to convince him that I wasn't trying to kill him if that's what he's chosen to believe. Nothing._

Still, the words dog him, and his frustration rises. _Why did Father ever give him that glove? Why didn't he just destroy it? He had to have known how dangerous it was; why would he have ever given it to Uryuu? And good God, if Father was going to give a Sanrei Glove to Uryuu, why didn't he explain that using it would kill him?_

_Why does Uryuu think that I would ever try to kill him?_

Ryuuken can't help but feel relief at Uryuu having survived. He supposes he shouldn't be surprised—_It turns out he really was too stubborn to die_—but the thought that he didn't accidentally kill his child is probably the only thing that let him sleep tonight, or any other night. It's not something he's comfortable with, not something he likes to admit to, but it is there (_Maybe it's the realization that if Uryuu had died, he would have been left completely alone_). The relief has evaporated, however, in the wake of the fact that Uryuu thinks that if he had died, Ryuuken would have shed no tears.

With a sigh, Ryuuken stands and rinses out his coffee mug, leaving it in the sink. He needs to leave for work before long; sunlight is starting to spread watery, golden fingers into the house. _Uryuu will believe what he likes, about me and everyone else. However erroneous his impressions of those around him are, he will cling to them, and see them changed only by force, if he changes them at all._

His lip twists bitterly as he heads out the front door towards his car. _And it seems I will always play the villain in his thoughts._


	157. 157: Scar

**Title**: Scar**  
>AN**: Correct me if I'm wrong, but Ryuuken has only ever been seen with the five-pronged (pentacle) pendant, as opposed to the typical cross pendant, right?**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>The overhead light in the bathroom is at once too dim and too bright, and every breath is like setting a fire in his lungs. <em>I can't even breathe without there being pain, even though it's been more than twelve hours. <em>Uryuu knows that the painkillers he has in his medicine cabinet—Tylenol, Aspirin and the like; it's not like he can get anything stronger without a prescription—won't be enough to do so much as dull the pain that rears its head to scream every time he moves, not in the prescribed dosage, but there's little else he can do. Uryuu tips out two Tylenol into his hand and swallows them without the aid of water. He expects nothing, but the ritual of swallowing pills is a comforting one, and he can hope, even if hope is vain, that perhaps _this _dose of Tylenol will actually do something.

Uryuu winces as he takes off his shirt. He's not entirely sure when it started, but sometime during school he thinks the wound on his chest may have started bleeding again. Sure enough, when Uryuu looks in the mirror, he can see a clear scarlet outline among the otherwise snowy gauze of his bandages. _I need to dress the wound again; Good thing I stocked up on bandages last night—or was it morning?—at the supermarket before I came home._

The metal clips are taken off of the bandages and placed on the white ledge of the somewhat-battered porcelain sink. With sore, weary limbs, Uryuu unwinds the length of gauze bandages from his chest, depositing them in the trash can.

He doesn't want to look at the wound. Uryuu knows that eventually he's going to have to look at it if he wants to reapply antiseptic and bandages, but he can't quite bring himself to look at it. His eyes are drawn to the spectacle of his face instead.

_I wonder how many people mistook me for a zombie today at school. _Thanks to the combination of barely three hours' sleep and a great deal of blood lost (_Can anyone wonder why I have anemia?_), Uryuu's face is as white as chalk with huge dark circles under his still rather bloodshot eyes. _I really do look like the walking dead. _Still, no one commented on the fact that he looks like this at school; there were no questions, no concerned inquiries or impertinent prodding, not so much as a single sideways glance. _Am I really so forgettable that everyone forgets I exist if I don't draw attention to myself?_

Deep down, Uryuu had hoped, had wished that they would notice, even if he wouldn't be able to acknowledge that they had spoken.

Still stalling, Uryuu looks at the lengths of bandages tied and knotted at odd intervals up and down his arms. None of them are bleeding through; he supposes he can wait until later to redress those cuts and abrasions. _As for this, well I'm sure it will have started to bleed through again by the time I take a shower._

_It's been a long time since a battle with a Hollow left me this scraped up. Funny that it would be a human setting the standards again._

Finally, Uryuu can stall no longer. He reaches for the bottle of antiseptic, and, finding his eyes fixed on the mirror, stares at the huge five-pronged wound left behind.

As it turns out, Ryuuken had restored his powers after all. The ability to see spirits and hear the buzzing pulse of living things has returned in full, no longer fuzzy nor even slightly impaired. Once he had gotten home last night (_or morning?_) Uryuu had, just to be safe, attempted to summon a spirit bow. In that he has been restored as well; the power of glowing blue flame is once again familiar to his fingertips. Once again, Uryuu can call himself a Quincy; he can do what he was born and trained to do, and maybe, he will find a way to protect the ones he cares about without breaking his word.

The wound left behind by Ryuuken's final arrow is hideous, clusters of scabs huddled along the lines and blood oozing out from around them. Five long lines radiating out from a single point, stretching out around his entire chest, like a star. Looking at it, Uryuu has no doubt that the wound will scar. Over the years he's more or less learned to tell which wounds will scar and which ones won't, and even if he hadn't, just looking at it, the wound is large enough and thick enough that it will be more of a miracle if it _doesn't _scar.

Uryuu feels as though he's been branded. _Maybe this is his way of making sure I'll always remember. _If Ryuuken wanted to make sure he never forgets the deal he struck, Uryuu has to hand it to him, this is certainly effective. It's not like he'll ever forget the circumstances by which he found himself in ownership of such a scar. He'll always be reminded of what he gave up for power when he sees this.

And for once, Uryuu finds himself wishing that this one wound will not scar. _I don't want to have to look at this for years, or months, or even one more day. I don't want to remember._

Waking up had been like driving a white-hot poker straight through to his heart. Breathing was worse agony even than it is now (Uryuu isn't convinced that he didn't break or at least bruise a rib—or maybe two—during the game of Cat and Mouse he played with Ryuuken) and his limbs moved only with the most strenuous of effort.

"_I thought that you had killed me."_

He had. As much as Uryuu had tried to convince himself that Ryuuken wasn't aiming to kill him during the assault, when he was caught in the middle of the chest by a burning bolt of silver light, there was nothing else he could think. All Uryuu could hold in his mind was that it was all over, that he was going to die there, in that gleaming silver tomb. That Ryuuken really had been trying to kill him.

When Uryuu had confronted Ryuuken with that one line, he would have given anything to hear him deny it. That had been his intent, to get Ryuuken to say that he hadn't been trying to kill him. That was all he wanted, to hear him say that his intent hadn't been to kill him, even if it might not have been true. Uryuu would have been relieved to hear him say it. _Even if he had been trying to kill me, I had thought that he would deny it. If he had denied it, said that he hadn't been trying to kill me and that his only intent last night was to restore my powers, I probably would have believed him. I would have been glad to._

But he hadn't. Of course he hadn't. When Uryuu had spoken the words, Ryuuken had never given him a response. He had stared at him for a few interminable moments, eyes glazed and face unreadable. When Ryuuken had spoken, it had been only to change the subject, and Uryuu is forced to conclude that though Ryuuken may have been trying to restore his powers last night, if he had died, the man would have shed few tears over his fallen body.

_And he wants me to come back, starting tomorrow night. God, why did I ever agree to that? He said "further training", but I'll bet anything it's just so he can make sure I'm not doing anything that might break the terms of our "agreement."_

If it was his choice, Uryuu wouldn't ever get within fifty feet of Ryuuken again. _Worried he might shoot you again? _a nasty voice jeers, and Uryuu can only answer _Yes. _More than that, Uryuu knows exactly what the situation will devolve into if he and Ryuuken are in the same room for extended lengths of time on a regular basis. _I left home because I didn't want to live that life anymore. I don't want to ever go back to that sort of half-life._

It's not his choice, though. Too stunned by the unexpected commandment to refuse, Uryuu had simply nodded in silence, and Ryuuken had chosen not to read in to his silence. Uryuu can't back out now, and doesn't like to think of the way Ryuuken would respond if he did. Besides, there's still the curiosity. Ryuuken's training wouldn't have been cut short; Ryuuken has had much longer to learn and master techniques than Uryuu has had. There must be things that he's aware of that Uryuu is not; the strangely shaped pendant Ryuuken uses to help channel his spiritual energy is proof of that. _I suppose I could take something away from these proposed "training sessions", if we don't strangle each other first, that is._

Come to think of it, the shape of Ryuuken's pendant is nearly identical to the wound on Uryuu's chest.

Uryuu runs his fingers over the jagged lines of dried blood, and flinches at the pain this inspires, eyes watering. _Reapplying antiseptic will only hurt worse. But then again, everything hurts these days, doesn't it? _Weariness and the desire for sleep hold a stranglehold about Uryuu's throat. If it wasn't for homework he'd probably collapse in his bed as soon as he was done reapplying bandages. As it is, his eyes droop as they examine the wound glaring back at him in the mirror, but they do not lie.

The sight of the wound is damning, and Uryuu wishes he didn't have to see it. His shrinking world will only grow smaller in the face of promises and isolation, and sight of this livid brand proves that in ways words never could.


	158. 158: Practice

**Title**: Practice**  
>AN**: Teens will be teens.  
><strong>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p><em>It's like two nights ago, except this time I can actually fire back. Well, that and he's shouting at me more.<em>

"Keep your arm out and straight," Ryuuken snaps. "This is very basic. Being out of practice is no excuse not to remember that."

_I do remember. Would you consider the pain that shoots up my arm every time I try to hold it straight a mitigating factor? _Knowing that he won't be getting any sympathy from present company, Uryuu doesn't put his thoughts into words. Instead, keeping his mouth clamped shut to keep from retorting or letting out any acknowledgement of pain, he does as he is told. He'll just have to ignore the darts of pain going up his arm and the scream of torn, ragged flesh rising up from his chest.

Just to compensate, Uryuu starts shooting again just as soon as he complies with Ryuuken's testy command. This is what Ryuuken wants, after all. _They say people need to find an outlet for their aggression or else they become unhappy people, but I doubt that this is anywhere near what "they" ever had in mind. _None of the arrows ever hit their target, of course. Ryuuken is far too fast.

Since he dragged himself home just after waking up from having been shot in the chest, Uryuu has decided that possibly he didn't break or bruise a rib—or two—after all. The pain seems to be concentrated on the lacerations on his chest, which would make sense, Uryuu allows reluctantly. It doesn't make this any easier, doesn't make breathing any easier, but it's something, he supposes. He's still not ruling out the injured rib theory, but has shelved it for now.

At any rate, Uryuu can't afford to focus on any pain of his right now. It's back to Cat and Mouse with a few superficial differences; dwelling on pain opens him up to attack.

Personally, Uryuu isn't sure what this is supposed to accomplish. All Ryuuken is having him do is try to shoot him while evading the older man's arrows. No easy feat even when he can fire back, and even though they've been at this for long enough that the sun is sinking and the silver walls are stained dull crimson, Ryuuken hasn't told him if they'll actually be doing anything _else _tonight.

_Maybe he's just trying to finish the job he started two nights prior. _This is more like target practice than "training," not just Ryuuken trying to shoot Uryuu, but him getting Uryuu to try to shoot _him_. _What is the point of this? What is supposed to be accomplished by this? _The only thing Uryuu can suppose is that Ryuuken is trying to gauge how long he can last in a fight and how good his aim is. If so, this is a poor way of finding out the latter.

Uryuu just barely dodges an arrow that would have struck his left leg. He drops into the shadows and struggles to catch his breath. _I'm not starting off at full capacity this time. I wasn't fighting injured last time. I don't know if he's going to try to kill me tonight, whether it be intentionally or accidentally. I have no idea when he'll call an end to this "training session", and I don't like to think of the way he'd react if I was to ask._

Every time he misses him, Uryuu is met with mockery and derisive retorts. He's careful not to give in to his irritation and shoot off arrows at random; Uryuu has no idea how long Ryuuken intends on keeping him here, and he can't afford to reach exhaustion before he's allowed to leave. Uryuu already knows all too well that Ryuuken can go on for far longer than he can.

Ryuuken seems to have no issue utilizing hirenkyaku in this chamber, but Uryuu is afraid to do the same. A Quincy is better off when using hirenkyaku if they're _not _using it in an enclosed space. Uryuu still isn't confident of his knowledge of the layout of this chamber; if he's not careful, using hirenkyaku could end up with him running into a wall. _That would be embarrassing; he'd probably never let me forget I did that._ If not for the fact that walls made of soul-synthesized silver will absorb the impact of a Quincy's arrow and regenerate relatively quickly afterwards, Uryuu would feel a bit uneasy about firing in an enclosed area as well.

A hand descends roughly on his shoulder and Uryuu very nearly jumps clean out of his skin. When he turns around, Ryuuken is seen to wear a face of irritation and exasperated disappointment. "If you plan on surviving very long," he hisses out through gritted teeth, "you would do better to pay attention to what's going on behind you. There is no one in your life who will watch your back in battle; absolutely no one."

Uryuu snarls but can form no articulate reply. What he would like to say is _There was once_, but can't quite form the words. He's not entirely sure of them, and at any rate, there's no point. There isn't anyone to watch his back anymore, as Ryuuken would so delight in pointing out if Uryuu gave him the opportunity. He instead takes the opportunity to try to shoot him as Ryuuken had demanded he do, but he darts off before any of the glowing blue bolts can connect with flesh.

"Perhaps if you were a little quicker on the draw next time," Ryuuken remarks from somewhere to Uryuu's left, "you would find that your arrows might actually hit something." The derisive words cut nearly as deep as the stinging arrows loosed from his bow.

"Stand still and you'll see how quick on the draw I am," Uryuu responds ominously, caught between two urges. He could start to try to figure out where Ryuuken is, but in so doing Uryuu would give Ryuuken the advantage and find himself open to attack. On the other hand, he could stay here in the shadows where it's safe, but Uryuu doubts that this little alcove will _stay _safe for much longer now that Ryuuken knows he's here.

In the end, Uryuu chooses to head back out into the open, and sure enough as soon as he steps out of the shadows, bolts of silver light blinding against the crimson-washed floors and walls come out of nowhere. Uryuu manages to dodge most of them despite the pain that makes it difficult to even breathe, but one grazes his arm, and as Uryuu watches his blood fly to disappear among the similarly-colored floor, he knows it won't be the last time tonight that he'll bleed.

The heavy lines of his five-pronged wound had scabbed over considerably, but as of the exertion of this evening, Uryuu can feel the scabs tearing away and blood starting to leak out beneath his bandages once again. He resists a rueful grimace; this is exactly what he had hoped to avoid, steering well away from physical exertion, but the wound has reopened just as Uryuu had feared it would.

_He won't care. If he did he would have waited longer to start this "training", would have given me long enough to heal before having me come back here. There's no point in telling him. I suppose if it gets bad enough, my passing out on the floor will tell him what's happened._

Uryuu catches a shadow moving on one of the ledges and fires, but the arrows coming back at him just a moment later tell him that he either missed or that Ryuuken was barely grazed by the arrow.

"A Hollow would have killed you by now," the voice roughened by so many years of smoking announces, ghostly echoes repeating the words. "You're too soft." Rancor rises. "How you survived this long is anyone's guess."

_So he had me come back here for target practice _and _to insult me. _"So you've told me," Uryuu fires back, swallowing down on the knot in his throat, "many times. I assure you, I've not forgotten since the last time you said so."

"Hmm." That soft, speculative sound might be the suggestion of a scathing laugh, but given that Uryuu has never heard Ryuuken laugh before, he's not sure what a laugh out of his mouth would sound like. "I suppose not. I just would have thought that you would have taken the opportunity to make some attempt at improvement."

The insult implied is obvious, to the point that Uryuu doesn't bother to respond to it.

As they go on, Uryuu only grows more exhausted and finds himself with more cuts and gouges, while Ryuuken is utterly unaffected, or at least able to give the impression of such. Shame rises like bile in Uryuu's throat, even if he might be unwilling to give voice to it.

This is much like his encounter with the two Shinigami when Rukia was being taken back to the Soul Society for execution. Uryuu finds himself utterly inadequate, not even close to being on the same level with his opponent. _Perhaps this was his intent from the start. He always said I was talentless. Maybe he wasn't content with just _telling _me that; he had to _show _me that I was devoid of talent as well._

Oh well. People don't get to the top on talent, and it wasn't like Ryuuken had ever seen him fight or practicing both of the times he proclaimed him to be without talent. _He's just trying to get a rise out of me. I have to remember that. If I let him take my composure I'll just be that much more distracted, that much more of an easy target._

It's hard to ignore the pain screaming beneath his bandages though, and the way his pride burns and prickles when Ryuuken shows himself as able to go far longer in a fight without tiring than Uryuu can. These things motivate Uryuu to go further than he should, provoke his pride to keep him from revealing that he is in pain and that he would be better off resting. All the while a single thought continues to go through his head, bitter and resentful as the arrows continue to fly and the light washed on the wall turns from crimson to deep bluish-black.

_If he was going to use me for target practice, why didn't he just say so?_


	159. 159: Limitations

**Title**: Limitations**  
>AN**: Hello again. Given that classes start back again on Tuesday, updates are going to get a bit more sporadic soon.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>The first few nights were spent with games of Cat and Mouse that now seem rather typical, the only difference being that unlike the first night, Uryuu could actually fight back. They always started at five in the afternoon, and Ryuuken kept Uryuu anywhere from ten at night to three in the morning, depending on how easily they tired and whether Uryuu had school the next day. Said training sessions were telling, if not particularly pleasant.<p>

"_I suppose you would like to go home, and rest."_

_Ryuuken narrows his eyes as he watches Uryuu lean against the wall, gasping heavily and knees buckling. He knows quite well that Uryuu's labored breathing doesn't just come from the tiredness of three hours running around and shooting without a break. Given that this has been the first time Ryuuken has spoken since calling for the respite, Uryuu's eyes dart up to fix on him. At first, they are wary, but after a while, Uryuu catches Ryuuken's tone, and his clear blue eyes are at once watchful and holding the beginnings of a fire of resentment._

"_After all," Ryuuken goes on, tilting his head to one side to watch the arduous rise and fall of Uryuu's chest, "the pain of the wound must be agonizing right now, after a good three hours of exertion with no rest. There can't be anything in your medicine cabinet strong enough to block out the pain completely, not in the recommended dosage. However—" his offhand voice grows harder "—you won't be going home. Not right now."_

_Uryuu says nothing, either out of tiredness, an active attempt to restrain himself from arguing, or because he just can't think of something to say. Instead, the boy continues on with his efforts to breathe normally, a spasm of pain coming over his face with every deeper breath._

"_You need to be able to fight when you're injured," he remarks flatly, the hard note in his voice growing harder with every syllable. "A Hollow won't politely stop and wait for you to catch your breath or stop bleeding. You need to be able to throw off pain long enough to conclude the battle and get to a safe place. If you can't even do that, Uryuu, then how do you expect to survive on your own?"_

_Watchful eyes become something different entirely, and Uryuu's silence speaks far more than his inarticulate words ever could, as his mouth twists in a hideous scowl and he glares spitefully at Ryuuken. Ryuuken only stares back, raising an eyebrow dismissively. "Well, I'm glad to know you're listening, at least."_

From these nights, Ryuuken has managed to glean a rough idea of how long it takes Uryuu to reach his limit and how good his aim is, at least when the boy is injured. The former can't be helped or altered; Uryuu is still growing into his abilities and Ryuuken has no doubt that as he gets older, he'll be able to go for longer without tiring. As for his aim, it's not nearly as good as Ryuuken would like—which he made a point of remarking upon to a decidedly unappreciative Uryuu—but for as long as training goes on, the exercises will serve to perhaps improve the boy's aim.

Having gauged what he has to work with, Ryuuken decides to move on to what he feels it is most imperative that Uryuu learn. "Tonight, we're going to start with the basics of hirenkyaku," he announces briskly, after shutting the door to the chamber behind him.

If Uryuu learns nothing else while he is here, Ryuuken knows that he needs to learn hirenkyaku. At the very least, with the basics of hirenkyaku down pat, Uryuu will have a better chance of evading any Hollow or Arrancar he comes upon, even if Ryuuken is still just a touch uneasy about further enabling Uryuu to get himself killed.

_At any rate, I need to keep Uryuu distracted long enough for the Shinigami to fight and conclude their little "war." If I'm going to do this, even if it's only to keep Uryuu from getting drawn into a fight not his own and killed there, I may as well do it correctly. Hirenkyaku is the best place to start; if he doesn't have the capability to learn, we'll just move on._

The answer Ryuuken receives to that pronouncement is the one he least expects. "I already know how," Uryuu mutters, staring at the floor. He still holds himself as though in pain, and though Ryuuken can easily imagine that the wound on his chest is still giving Uryuu no small amount of trouble (it will for weeks ahead, Ryuuken has no doubt), he also knows that there have been new cuts and bruises and abrasions since then to make Uryuu seem to be in clear discomfort.

Frowning, Ryuuken digs further for clarification. _Surely he doesn't mean… _"Excuse me? And look at me when you're talking to me," he demands irritably. "We've had this discussion before; you will find, Uryuu, that most people take issue with someone who is incapable of making eye contact with them."

Uryuu hesitates for only a moment, drawing in a deep breath before lifting his head to look Ryuuken in the eye. "I already know how to perform hirenkyaku," he informs Ryuuken, using a voice that, while barely any louder than the last, is stronger to the ear and slightly more assertive. A dull flush creeps up the boy's neck.

_What? _Personally, Ryuuken can't help but be highly dubious of any such claim. _He wouldn't have had the time… _"Oh?" He raises an eyebrow skeptically. "Prove it."

"Do you think I'm lying?" It may just be Ryuuken's imagination, but he can almost see sparks flying in the air around Uryuu's mouth at that ever-so-slightly indignant question. _Dragons breathing fire, I suppose._

Ryuuken scoffs, revealing a thin simulacrum of a smile, too artificial and shallow to pass for the real thing. "You'll forgive me if I can't help but be doubtful of your claim. Why don't you prove me wrong?"

Uryuu proceeds to do just that, and before Ryuuken can even blink the boy who was formerly about twenty feet away, hovering uneasily near a wall, is standing far closer to him than the rules of personal boundaries would consider polite. "Does this suffice for a display of my experience with the technique?" Uryuu asks, ever so polite and correct behind a curtain of gritted teeth.

Refusing to take a step backwards and acknowledge this childish display, Ryuuken responds, just as politely, "Perhaps you could give a more _extensive _demonstration?"

Obliging him, Uryuu darts about the room for around forty-five seconds, a blur of black hair and pale skin and clothing, before Ryuuken calls from him to stop and come back. In the interim, Ryuuken watches Uryuu, growing less sure of everything by the second.

This is real hirenkyaku alright, more extensive than cheap tricks—and Ryuuken isn't willing to admit that it takes a fair amount of fine-tuned control to use hirenkyaku to cross a distance of twenty feet, come to a dead stop in front of an obstacle, and not run into and bowl over said obstacle in the process. Oh yes, Uryuu can perform hirenkyaku. Even if he's no master of the technique—Ryuuken has to watch closely, but he can see mistakes being made—Uryuu is familiar with it. What Ryuuken can't understand is how he _learned _the technique in the first place. _Father wouldn't have taught it to him; Uryuu was too young for the old man to have even attempted to teach him._

Once called back, Uryuu walks up, cheeks flushed with color but otherwise quite pale. Strangely feverish eyes trained intently on Ryuuken's face, he only has one word to say on the subject. "Well?"

"Sloppy," Ryuuken answers flatly, and is rewarded with a dark scowl. He doesn't much care; that's the truth, whether Uryuu likes it or not. "Inadequate. Your control is substandard at best. You will have to work to improve your skill with hirenkyaku; otherwise you are likely to injure yourself in the application of it." Ryuuken can't help but hesitate before going on, relieving his voice of some of the tense flatness. "May I ask how you learned the technique?"

Uryuu's pale throat flutters, bird-like, as he swallows down hard on anger long enough to answer. "Grandfather's notes," he reveals, his gaze not quite fixed on Ryuuken's eyes. "He… He left them behind."

"Ah." Ryuuken supposes he should have remembered that Soken had left behind an abundance of notes, considering that he had taken some from the old man's house after he died. It seems Uryuu had the same idea. "Bring them to me, here at the hospital, on Sunday. I would like to examine them."

-0-0-0-

Ryuuken had decided from the start that there would be no training on Sundays, for as long as this goes on. Uryuu would need Sunday to finish up with whatever homework he had been given for the weekend, and after six nights of exhausting themselves for at least five hours, they both needed a day to rest.

However, taking Sunday as a day to rest doesn't mean that Ryuuken has any intention of staying home from work. There is nothing at home to hold him there for very long, not anymore; Ryuuken may go home earlier than usual on Sundays, but that's only because he's maxed out his overtime by then. If he has no other diversion, work is as good as any. People don't stop getting sick or hurt just because it's Sunday.

Uryuu comes to the hospital at around ten in the morning, holding a battered old notebook tucked under his arm. Without a word, Uryuu holds it out, and Ryuuken unceremoniously relieves his son of the notebook, his eyes locked on the cover.

After a few moments, though, Ryuuken does look up, when he sees that Uryuu hasn't left and wears hesitation written all over his pale face, like scribbles on paper. "I'm not going to steal it from you, Uryuu." Ryuuken can barely keep from sneering contemptuously; _So insecure. _"You'll have it back by Tuesday at the latest; believe me, I have absolutely no intention of keeping your notes."

Still clearly hesitant, Uryuu nods, and retreats from the office, clearly relieved to no longer have to be in his presence.

Once Uryuu is gone, Ryuuken takes the opportunity to study the notebook further. First of all, it's not really a notebook at all, but rather loose papers stitched unevenly together, bound with two pieces of old, dark brown leather for a front and back cover. Careful to be delicate, Ryuuken turns the thin, yellowed pages, looking over the writings found there. _It's Father's handwriting, alright, but it must have been written after he got arthritis; the writing's barely legible in places._

True to his word, Uryuu has brought him the notes on hirenkyaku that Soken had left behind, and they are indeed quite thorough in explaining how to utilize and execute the technique. As he reads on, however, Ryuuken's brow furrows as he begins to become aware of a notable omission.

Soken had not allowed Ryuuken to start to learn hirenkyaku until he was a little more than twelve years old, about six years after his training had started. It had taken him about a month to get the basics down, a month in which Ryuuken would be drilled in the basics for about two to six hours (depending on how long it took one of them to tire) each day. Beyond that, refining his skill with the technique takes, as Soken once said, a lifetime. Learning and mastering hirenkyaku requires experience and regular practice. It also, as Ryuuken had learned as a disgruntled preteen, requires a not-inconsiderable amount of pain.

The reason, it turns out, that Soken hadn't wanted Ryuuken starting to learn hirenkyaku until he had a few years of training down, was because of the physical risk that incorrect application of hirenkyaku poses. His first week of training in hirenkyaku had resulted in burns and long stretches of flesh where the skin looked to have just been peeled away like the skin from the flesh of a fruit. In the first few minutes after receiving these injuries, just trying to move was agony.

"_I know it hurts," _Soken had said in an attempt to commiserate with his son. He had put his hand under the crook of Ryuuken's elbow and pulled him back to his feet, and Ryuuken had been too weak to try to push him away so he could stand on his own. _"It always hurts. But you have to keep trying until you've mastered the basics. Using hirenkyaku hurts less and less as you become more skilled with it."_

Soken has made it crystal clear that those who attempt to perform hirenkyaku must devote their full concentration to the application of the technique, but he devotes not a word to the _effect _of carelessness on the user. For a moment, Ryuuken would like nothing better than to rip up the pages in frustration and set them on fire with his lighter, before remembering that he had promised Uryuu that he would give the notes back to him. The stitched-together notebook, still open, falls to the desk with a soft rustle, disrupting some other sheets already found there. Ryuuken leans back in his chair, rubbing a hand against his aching temples.

_Limits. That's what it all comes down to, the limitations of our body and the limitations we create with our mind._

Uryuu has learned hirenkyaku from notes his grandfather left behind. _I ought to have taken them with me too, so he wouldn't have been able to put himself at risk. _That would mean that he has managed to get to this level of hirenkyaku on his own ability, having been almost totally self-taught which Ryuuken will now admit, albeit grudgingly, is no mean feat. However, Ryuuken is willing to bet that Uryuu wouldn't have been so eager to learn how to perform the technique if he had known what an incorrect application of hirenkyaku could do to him.

He hadn't known, though. There was no reason to fear that he might hurt himself, and with that limitation removed (_never even existent_), Uryuu would have just kept on, despite the injuries. Ryuuken has no doubt that Uryuu would have been stubborn enough to ignore the burns and the blood long enough to master the basics of hirenkyaku and hone his skills in that area, even if he still has a long way to go towards truly mastering the technique. His grasp is imperfect and, frankly, he's rather _loud _when he performs it (if he was better at hirenkyaku, Uryuu would be nearly silent when performing the technique), but he has learned.

_Of course he had no limitations. After all, there was no one there to tell him how dangerous it was and there was no evidence of physical harm being possible until he did it himself. That seems to be how it always goes with Uryuu. He does something stupid because there's no one telling him not to, and even if there was, he'd probably do it anyway. He ignores his limitations even when he ought to heed them more closely._

Ryuuken sighs. They will, of course, be working to improve Uryuu's grasp of hirenkyaku. There are other things, unrelated to hirenkyaku, that Ryuuken wants to touch upon for as long as he has Uryuu come to the hospital for training, but it's vital that Uryuu improve himself in that area, so as to avoid accidental injuries in the future. That Uryuu already knows how to perform the technique will make this much easier than it would have been otherwise, he has to admit, but it's just…

_He should never have been able to get this far on his own._

Just out of curiosity, Ryuuken starts to flip the pages of the notebook again. He's noticed that the notes on hirenkyaku only occupy about a third of the length of the notebook, and wonders what else there could be.

When Ryuuken finds out what else there was written in the notebook, it's perhaps a good thing that the door to his office is shut. Otherwise, anyone happening to be on the same floor at the time would have been subjected to the rather curious experience of hearing the director exhausting his not-inconsiderable vocabulary of every expletive contained therein.


	160. 160: Tired

**Title**: Tired**  
>AN**: I know that in the Hueco Mundo arc Uryuu made mention that he was no longer all that used to fighting Hollows, but I like to think that he would have gone after one at least once during the period between getting his powers back and going to Hueco Mundo, just to test things out.  
><strong>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>If the way he can barely keep his eyes open as he droops to the park bench is any indication, maybe Uryuu ought to have given himself a few hours rest before doing this. His legs feel like they're made of water and he thinks he might well go to sleep right on this bench, but all the same he quirks a little smile as he listens to the Hollow in its death throes.<p>

It's been a long time since Uryuu was able to fight a Hollow on somewhat equal footing instead of having to resort to silver tubes hidden in his clothes. Instead of feeling like a rabbit being chased like a wolf, he could actually call himself the hunter again.

_I suppose that's the one good thing about having made that "deal" with him. I don't have to run when I see a Hollow anymore; I can actually behave as I am supposed to when confronted with a Hollow._

Tonight… Tonight was almost the same as the very first time Uryuu ever killed a Hollow. The energy of the spiritual bow had crackled in his hands and it was like someone had set fire to his blood. His heart had pounded as he fired arrows at the screaming Hollow, blood rushing in his ears. The only difference this time was that Uryuu had been able to avoid the swipes from its long claws, and that the fight as a whole was over far sooner than it had been the first time when he was twelve.

_This, I suppose, was the true rite of passage, the proof I needed. I am a Quincy in truth again. I can finally call myself a hunter again._

The last vestiges of the Hollow float away on the night air and Uryuu slumps further into the curve of the park bench and struggles to catch his breath.

It's not just tiredness that makes Uryuu think that he might have been better off letting this one slide. He still gets darts of pain up his chest with exertion and his limbs ache as well. Uryuu is sure that it will feel even worse in the morning after he's had a few hours of lying in the same position for the pain and soreness to settle in. However, he only gives thought to regretting the pain he'll be in when morning comes for a second, unwilling to truly regret it considering the feeling of freedom he has again.

This is like the first night he ever killed a Hollow in other ways as well. No longer does Uryuu have to look over his shoulder fearing the day a Hollow comes upon him. Now he can walk down deserted streets secure in the knowledge that, if a Hollow does try to make him its meal, he can at least respond by killing the creature. When the dead and the living are threatened by Hollows, he can at least make an effort to make their lives (or afterlives) a bit safer.

Maybe the satisfaction is a little empty, though. After all, it's not like Uryuu has anyone to share it with.

The hunter has been restored to his original state, glowing blue power pulsing through his veins, and completely, totally alone. There's no one to spend the days with, no one to talk to, no one to have somewhat friendly arguments with or commiserate over war wounds with. _No voices to break the silence, nothing to break the long solitude, and I gave up all respite willingly. Why?_

For now, Uryuu is still able to tell himself that he isn't in any real pain over having forfeited his friends. For now, he tries not to dwell on it except to tell himself that he'll get used to the pain of being alone again eventually, just as he's been able to grow used to every other pain he's ever had. _Of course this pain will pass. Just like any other pain I've had, it will pass. _What Uryuu forgets, or perhaps just chooses not to remember, is that he only ever became used to pain—there never came a point in which he was able to ignore it.

Instead, Uryuu refocuses his attention on what he's just done, the Hollow he's just killed, and he thinks of Ryuuken, and some of the things that have changed in his mind.

Uryuu wonders how Ryuuken would react if he could have seen him killing the Hollow tonight. His reactions in years gone by was to scold, argue, insult, and all the while dab antiseptic on his cuts. Though he was always ready with disinfectant and bandages, Ryuuken never bothered to hide his disapproval of Uryuu's decision to hunt Hollows, nor could he conceal his contempt for Uryuu's inability to come out of his skirmishes completely uninjured. Uryuu never would have believed that the day would come when Ryuuken _wanted _him to be able to hunt Hollows.

He's still unsure of Ryuuken's motivations for "helping" him. If Ryuuken had wanted to restore Uryuu purely out of the goodness of his heart, he would not have attached a price tag to the restoration, let alone such a steep one. And Uryuu still gets the impression that Ryuuken isn't too keen on him fighting Hollows, "doing the work allotted to the Shinigami", as he would put it. _All those denials, all those insults, all those contemptuous dismissals, they had the ring of truth, even if he had been lying to me about who he was the whole time. He genuinely despises the thought of being a hunter of Hollows, and probably would have liked nothing better than for me to be unable to hunt them myself. So why help me at all?_

Beyond that, why has Ryuuken elected to continue "helping" him? It turns out that he had been truthful in the assertion that he wanted to train him after all, if the past few nights of practice in refining his control of hirenkyaku have been any indication. Uryuu can't imagine why Ryuuken would want to facilitate his return to hunting Hollows, can't even begin to guess at his motives for doing so.

_He doesn't exactly talk about motives. Oh yes, he'll go on for days and days about his opinions, but never gives a hint of an explanation as to how he formed those opinions. Chances are I'll never know._

Eventually, the flickering of a streetlamp rouses Uryuu from his state of contemplative half-sleep and he starts to rise from the park bench, biting back a groan at the way his bones protest. School starts in less than eight hours and Uryuu needs to go home, bandage his cuts, nurse his bruises and sleep.

_Maybe… Maybe I'll be able to go back to hunting Hollows once this is over. Once he lets me go and I'm not having to exhaust myself six nights a week, I'll be able to hunt Hollows regularly again. For now… I hate to admit it, but I just don't think I'm going to be able to do this right now. Later. Not now._

As Uryuu trudges home, tired and unhurried, he hopes that none of the people he forfeited notices any bandages the next morning. He doesn't want to have to pretend he can't hear, or give a dismissal rude enough to keep them from asking again. Uryuu's afraid of how much he would give away, tired as he knows he will be in the morning.


	161. 161: Advice

**Title**: Advice**  
>AN**: I thought a touch of the bizarre (or at least the out of place) would lighten the mood a bit. Also, I've passed the 200,000 word mark.  
><strong>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>He's slumped against the wall; Uryuu's pride hasn't been quite so broken down yet as to allow him to slump to the floor. Personally, Uryuu dreads the day that may come when he <em>has <em>had his pride broken so much that he'll sit instead of stand, and doesn't like to think of what will have happened to have him come to that point. As it is, Uryuu's legs ache so much that he would be glad to sit down and give them a rest; however, sitting just puts him in too vulnerable a position. _Not here. Wait until you get home._

Frankly, Uryuu is starting to get fed up with this whole thing. Okay, maybe not _starting_; more like "I've always been fed up with this, but I'm just now man enough to admit it." Certainly, there are few fates he does not find preferable to being eaten by a Hollow, and that's probably the situation he would find himself in now had Ryuuken not intervened when he had. But as the days wear on, Uryuu starts to wonder whether or not he should have just taken his chances, just to avoid having to be in the same room with Ryuuken on a regular basis.

_It does seem like that method of death would be less painful than anything he can come up with._

Now, Ryuuken has called an end to tonight's training session, several hours after they first came down here. Uryuu has no idea what time it is; the sky outside has been dark for what feels like an eternity, the crescent moon barely showing amongst all the gloomy clouds. All he wants to do is go home and sleep, but he can't do any of that until he catches his breath enough to walk home.

_Come on. I have no intention of staying here all night. Come on._

"Bring a water bottle with you next time." Uryuu looks up, surprised, at that remark. Ryuuken is standing by the door and looking him over critically, balancing a cigarette in his fingers. He'd seemed more irritable and snappish than usual tonight; Uryuu suspects that this is the first cigarette he's had in several hours. _Maybe he's trying to quit? _The thought is utterly alien—Ryuuken has smoked for at least as long as Uryuu's been alive; he's never known him _not _to smoke—and not terribly plausible, but Uryuu supposes it's possible.

Deciding not to chance it that he might have misheard what the other man said, Uryuu frowns and tilts his head. "Excuse me?" he asks, genuinely perplexed. _Did he just tell me to bring a water bottle?_

"Ugh." Ryuuken sighs irritably and takes a long drag off of his cigarette. Pale blue smoke trails off into the air, the acrid odor rankling; Uryuu wrinkles his nose and coughs spasmodically. "You need to avoid dehydration; given that this isn't an "actual" combat situation, you could be forgiven for bringing a water bottle with you tomorrow night."

_Well… That was unexpected. _"Oh… Okay," Uryuu says slowly. _When will the other penny drop, I wonder?_

In about three seconds, as it turns out. After a thick, harsh cough, Ryuuken clears his throat and goes on. "You also need to eat something rich in carbohydrates before coming here, for the energy. Bread or rice would be ideal. And not immediately before coming here, either; I would recommend eating something between half an hour and an hour before you come here for training."

"Alright." All the while, Uryuu stares at him, just waiting for the moment when this stranger who has done something with Ryuuken to rip off the admittedly quite convincing mask and reveal his true identity. _Is this even the same man?_

Even after he convinces himself that, yes, this is Ryuuken he's talking to—_As if there was ever any doubt_—Uryuu can't help but be a little perturbed by the whole situation. _Just when I thought things couldn't possibly get any weirder, what with him actually having Quincy powers, actually being willing to use them, and everything else that's going on, he starts giving me dietary advice. Of course. That is _just _the conversation to be having after another grueling night of trying to kill me and pretending it's really just training. Of course._

Suddenly, Ryuuken's eyes narrow suspiciously. "You are taking your medication, aren't you?" he asks sharply.

"Yes," Uryuu answers, squaring his shoulders defensively. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"Good. It's important that you continue to take it, especially considering how much blood you've lost recently—not that this is at all good for your health, even with the iron supplement," Ryuuken adds darkly, twisting his lip slightly and drawing another deep drag from his cigarette. He barely seems able to keep calm without it.

Uryuu curls his lip. _Hypocrite_. "Well, if you think this is bad for my health, then why do you have me come here every night?" he challenges.

Perhaps mercifully, Ryuuken either ignores that jibe or simply doesn't hear. Instead, after a few moments of puffing away, he changes the subject once again. "When was the last time you had your eyes examined?"

"Umm, well I…"

"Not since before you left, then. When was the last time you had a physical exam?"

"I—"

"The same." Ryuuken shakes his head wearily and frowns; Uryuu can practically see cogs whirling behind his hard, glassy eyes. "Alright. I want you here on Saturday at ten in the morning for a full physical examination. That should clear up any misconceptions, and we'll know if the prescription for your glasses needs to be changed."

_Wait, what? _Uryuu feels his face color angrily. "Now wait just a minute." He has no intention of coming to the hospital on Saturday morning, time when he could be doing his homework or recovering from the aches and pains of Friday's "training session" just in time for Saturday's. Uryuu especially has no intention of coming back here for a physical exam considering who will likely be doing the examining. _Yet another hour spent alone with him. Oh yes, that's _exactly _how I want to spend my Saturday._

Ryuuken's expression almost imperceptibly hardens, but Uryuu is used enough to that face to know the mood that brooks no argument. "Is there something in your schedule that doesn't allow for that, Uryuu?" he asks icily.

"Well, no but—"

"It's decided, then. Come to the hospital on Saturday at ten in the morning. Do _not _be late." Ryuuken chooses this moment to leave the room, a long, thin trail of powder blue smoke following him, effectively cutting off any further argument. _He certainly knows what to leave on; I'll give him that._

Once sure that Ryuuken will no longer be anywhere in the vicinity when he leaves the chamber, Uryuu trudges out of the room, the cool night air slightly chilly on his flesh.

_What just happened? _He wonders to himself as he walks down the street, the street lamps flickering and cars rushing by. _Where did that come from? _Uryuu frowns gloomily; it doesn't seem that he has much of a choice but to come to the hospital on Saturday (unless he can argue it out with Ryuuken and win before then, but that seems unlikely) and spend the morning being poked and prodded by Ryuuken, as unattractive a morning as that sounds. It does nothing to detract from the bizarreness of what just happened, however.

_Guess the Twilight Zone really does exist in real life._


	162. 162: Vicious

**Title**: Vicious**  
>AN**: The kid proves that his attacks really do have teeth.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>Uryuu's ragged breathing has become a similar sound to Ryuuken's ears, the boy gasping, trying to choke down on bile. He's crumpled against the wall, knees buckled and probably only managing to stay upright because his back's braced against the wall. Ryuuken resists the urge to resume attacking. He'll give him a moment to rest.<p>

Though it would be difficult to tell looking at him now, bloody, bruised, and panting, the physical examination Ryuuken had had Uryuu go through revealed nothing seriously wrong. His eyesight apparently hasn't degraded any since he was thirteen—something to be thankful for—and the physical wounds don't appear to have wrought any damage beyond the external.

"_Take a deep breath," Ryuuken mutters, holding the stethoscope to Uryuu's back. "And try to stay calm."_

_Apparently, "deep breath" in Uryuu's mind means jittery and uneven, though Ryuuken knows where this comes from. At any rate, the boy remains silent, struggling to give calm, deep breaths. The stiff set of his shoulders and spine highlights his already palpable discomfort. He shivers at the chilliness of the room and Ryuuken catches Uryuu turning his head slightly towards the shut door. _Eager to leave, I have no doubt.

_Once done, Ryuuken comes to look Uryuu in the eye and nods to the bandages wrapped tightly about his chest. "The bandages, take them off. I want to see it."_

_A hint of reddish color enters in to Uryuu's pallid, waxen skin. His jaw sets stubbornly and he makes no move to remove his bandages, hands remaining clasped on his knees._

"_Shall I do it myself?" Ryuuken asks frigidly, curling his lip._

_That, at least, seems to get the sort of reaction out of Uryuu that Ryuuken wanted. _A rabid dislike of being touched seems to have something resembling an upside after all. _Uryuu places the metal clips keeping the bandages taut on the table and starts to unwind the bandages. As the layers grow thinner, red, raw flesh becomes increasingly noticeable._

_The wound, at least, seems to be healing at the rate it should be. The scabs are still there in places, but in all honesty Uryuu doesn't really have to wear bandages over it anymore. Instead of a bloody wound, what he saw the last time, Ryuuken's eyes are met with what looks more like a clean brand mark a couple of weeks after it has been applied. The pentacle, with clearly visible ridges of flesh, sure to scar._

It was necessary, _Ryuuken tells himself, when he sees Uryuu look away, the boy's face now red for a reason other than stubborn defiance._

Ryuuken had to leave the healing wound on Uryuu's chest out of the report. Normally he would never even countenance such deception, but there's no way either one of them could have explained how the wound got there in the first place. The others, Ryuuken didn't have to lie about or cover up. They, the wounds and the scars, having at least partially healed, could be explained away as the result of fights or accidents.

Now, Uryuu is picking up some new cuts and scratches, blood dripping to the floor.

He seems to be having some difficulty channeling the energy correctly to form the five-pronged bow. Now, Ryuuken will admit that it's a curious design—he personally suspects it to be one created specifically for the purpose of combating the Shinigami during the war—but the very reason the pendants were created in the first place was to aid beginners in properly channeling their spiritual energy. Uryuu ought not to be having these difficulties.

"Try again," Ryuuken tells him blandly, "and attack me. Go on, attack me."

Gritting his teeth, Uryuu does so, but Ryuuken is well out of the way long before he can form the five-pronged bow and fire. "You'll have to do better than that." Ryuuken's voice is still calmly nonchalant as he dodges out of the way of arrows a microsecond too slow.

His eyes narrow as Uryuu loses focus and the unfamiliar bow evaporates. The boy's pale brow furrows in frustration and his fingers clench into fists. His already ragged breathing grows increasingly uneven in the heat of frustrated anger.

Ryuuken walks up and comes to a stop about fifteen feet away from the seething Uryuu. "What's the matter?" An incisive edge sends the words niggling deep under Uryuu's flesh. "Does tiredness make your concentration fail you?" Uryuu's shoulders stiffen like sheets going taut on a laundry line. "Or is all of this simply beyond your capabilities?"

Uryuu fires again, loses concentration and control again, and once more, Ryuuken sidesteps the arrows, stepping back into position afterwards. "I can see that you find yourself incapable tonight. Why don't you just give up? This is clearly beyond your abilities."

Just a moment later, Ryuuken discovers why so many consider rage such an effective focusing tool.

Uryuu forms the five-pronged bow and fires so quickly that Ryuuken can't fully comprehend what's happening. A stream of blue fire splits the air in two, singing its fierce, determined song. A look of savage satisfaction comes over Uryuu's face. Ryuuken is down on the ground, coming to grips with a blinding pain nestled in his right side, before he can register the fact that, after all of their games of Cat and Mouse, Uryuu has finally managed to make one of his arrows hit something other than the silver walls.

_I didn't know they hurt so much. _The thing is… The thing is, Ryuuken has never been shot before, not by a Quincy's arrow. He gasps and chokes as he struggles to get up and familiarize himself with a distinctly _un_familiar pain.

Soken never would have shot either of them, not on purpose; Ryuuken doesn't think the old man would have even tried. If any of his arrows had connected with the flesh of his son or grandson, the only reaction out of him would have been one of horror and remorse, not satisfaction nor anything else. Now, Ryuuken curses his father's softness, because it left him unprepared for the intense pain capable of being inflicted by a Quincy's arrow.

After a few seconds of hovering, footsteps echo off of the walls as Uryuu starts towards him uncertainly. Whatever anger or satisfaction there may have been on his face has vanished like frost confronted by the morning sun. Instead, his eyebrows are drawn up with a hesitant, even anxious expression fixed on his face at the expression of pain etched onto Ryuuken's.

"I… I…" For a moment, Uryuu seems on the verge of saying something, before breaking off. He licks his cracked, dry lips, emotion roiling behind his widened eyes, before stretching out a hand towards Ryuuken's shoulder.

Ryuuken snarls and shakes him off. Uryuu recoils and backs up, watching, eyes still huge, as Ryuuken struggles to his feet, standing straight despite the intense pain this causes.

"I think that will be enough for tonight," he remarks, tone clipped and words tight. Ryuuken's strictly controlled words are belied by his labored breathing. "Dismissed."

-0-0-0-

Once at home, Ryuuken makes a beeline for the bathroom.

Though Uryuu took most of the bandages with him when he left home, he did miss some of them, specifically the bandages still in their box beneath the sink. Ryuuken supposes he should be grateful for that oversight on his son's part, as he takes a roll of gauze out of its box.

The wound left by Uryuu's arrow strikingly resembles a notch in his flesh. Acrid and pungent, the odor of scorched skin and blood only grows more unpalatable with the addition of antiseptic. Ryuuken grits his teeth as he dabs at the wound with a cotton swab, and reflects that he hasn't had to do this for himself since he wasn't much older than Uryuu is now.

_Perhaps even I must live in fear of growing complacent. _Ryuuken sighs as he slips the metal clips over the gauze to hold the bandages in place. From there, he puts the bandages and the antiseptic up and pulls on the shirt he had gotten out of the closet; the one he was wearing when he was shot will have to be thrown away. The pain sends jolts up and out across threads of skin and Ryuuken wonders what he has in the medicine cabinet in terms of painkillers. Something strong, he hopes.

Uryuu has finally become fast enough, or perhaps simply vicious enough, for his arrows to hit his human opponent, and those arrows sting, Ryuuken has discovered, just as much as a Hollow's bite or slash.

_This, I suppose, is the disadvantage that Quincy have in any fight with a Shinigami or a Hollow. The Shinigami can withstand injuries that would kill the living instantly. Hollows can regenerate from most wounds if you give them the time needed. A Quincy, on the other hand, though more durable than the average human—they'd have to be, considering the creatures they fight—is just that, human. We can't simply shrug off these sorts of injuries. We're only human._

_Only human… _Ryuuken taps out two aspirin and downs them, drawing another sigh.

Uryuu is now fast enough to strike him, and Ryuuken supposes he can't afford to chalk this up as a one-time occurrence. No matter. Ryuuken is more than fast enough and more than vicious enough to keep up with his student, and Uryuu still has much to learn of true viciousness.


	163. 163: Lonely

**Title**: Lonely  
><strong>AN**: And once again I am covering a topic I went over, admittedly rather superficially, in a brief oneshot, but more fleshed out and with updated characterization. Hope you like it.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>The silence is like an ocean ready to suck him beneath the surface and drown him, until he's a corpse to feed the fish at the bottom of the sea. Lowering himself onto his bed, wincing at the way his bandages itch and strain, Uryuu is met only with the sound of footsteps overhead and his own heart beating, and none of it sounds right. <em>Shouldn't it all sound louder? My heartbeat ought to sound louder to my own ears, even if no one else can hear it.<em>

Perhaps encroaching deafness is just a symptom of loneliness. _That must be it_, Uryuu decides bitterly, pulling the thin sheets over his shoulders and trying to find a position that doesn't press darts of pain into his skin. Normally he wouldn't like being drowned in total darkness, but tonight, Uryuu is glad to find himself completely cut off from the light. It hides him from prying eyes who would sniff out his own weakness and selfishness.

_Why did I ever agree to this?_

It's been a little over two weeks now, fifteen days and eight and a half hours, to be precise, since Uryuu gave his word that he would never again have any contact with a Shinigami or anyone connected to them. For fifteen days, Uryuu has kept his word and pretended as though he never knew any of them. That has not been so difficult as it might have been, since none of them seem to have noticed that he has suddenly stopped talking to them altogether or that he has been consistently coming to school wearing bandages. Part of him wishes they _would _notice, would show some concern even if he couldn't respond to it, but the other part of him, the half that doesn't give in to pangs of guilt and regret quite so easily, tells him that if they've forgotten him, even temporarily, so much the better. At least Uryuu won't have to ignore them to their faces.

_Just a sign that they've noticed something different. That's all I want. I just want to know that my behavior towards them is not so unsociable as for them to think it would be normal for me to just not talk to them at all for two weeks. I just want to know I'm not that forgettable._

_I suppose I should be grateful. If they don't notice me, don't notice that anything's out of place, they won't go asking questions, and I won't have to act as though I never knew them. I don't want to hurt them like that. I will if I have to, but I don't want to hurt them. Maybe it's just because it would hurt me too. Still…_

_Still, the world seems so much smaller now without them._

Uryuu supposes he could tell himself that he had no choice but to take Ryuuken's offer. After all, Ryuuken was offering him his powers back and the circumstances under which he made that offer all but proved to Uryuu that he was eventually going to be eaten by a Hollow if he didn't have his powers to help him combat them. It's not his fault Ryuuken likes to attach costly price tags to offers of "help", nor is it Uryuu's fault that Ryuuken likes to place his blows where he knows they will hurt the most.

But he can't tell himself that. Saying "there's no choice" is just a way of consoling himself with the choice he's made, and Uryuu knows better than to believe that self-deception will get him anywhere. He did have a choice. He could have chosen to refuse Ryuuken's offer and try to make things work on his own; there was nothing forcing Uryuu to agree to Ryuuken's demands.

At the same time, Uryuu knows that he could have taken Urahara's offer as well. He supposes that his reasoning on that was something along the lines of "better the devil you know than the devil you don't", he's sure that Urahara's offer of help would not have been without its price either, and Uryuu is willing to bet that price itself would have been steep. However, whatever way Urahara chose to chain Uryuu to him, he doubts that the shopkeeper would have cut off his access to his friends. He doesn't think that Urahara would have done that to him; he might have screwed him over in other ways, but not like that.

_I should have just taken Urahara-san's offer when I still could. God only knows what _he _would have wanted for payment—who knows? It might have been even worse than what Ryuuken asked—but at least I'd still be able to talk to people._

Beyond that, Uryuu had a choice in Seireitei as well, the choice not to remove the Sanrei Glove when he fought Mayuri. He could have taken the opportunity to try to kill him without relying on the temporary jolt of extraordinary power provided. It might not have worked—it seems that even removing the Sanrei Glove wasn't enough to kill Mayuri, though Uryuu still maintains that it would have worked had the poison not affected his aim—but Uryuu at least would have been able to regroup, bide his time, and formulate a plan. He hadn't had to remove the glove.

But he had. Uryuu had removed the Glove, had refused Urahara's offer, and had taken Ryuuken's instead. He had made one bad choice on top of another, until he entangled himself into a situation that he had known he would never be happy with, yet accepted anyways, because he couldn't at the time conceive of a way out. He'd known at the time that accepting Ryuuken's offer might give him his powers back but that it would only bring him misery in the long-run, but only now is Uryuu truly able to comprehend the meaning of the word "misery."

_After all, there's no misery greater than the misery of being alone. Losing a spouse, a child, parents, siblings, all of that engenders a feeling of loneliness, being cut off from the ones you care about with no respite in sight. Friends too. Never forget the friends._

Cut off from very nearly everyone in his life, Uryuu can see the breadth of his whole world, and how that gray world has been diminished and restricted.

Of course, he won't be able to pursue the still-existing if presently shelved desire to kill Mayuri. Mayuri is a Shinigami and Uryuu can't help but think that killing him counts as associating with him. At any rate, Uryuu had no intention of letting that desire consume his life—he wasn't really going to dwell on it for as long as Mayuri wasn't within shooting range—but he won't be able to pursue it at all, now. That rankles, certainly it rankles, but the frustration of having been thwarted in any future plots to kill Mayuri is small fish compared to what really matters here.

Uryuu could count and number the names of those whom he so carelessly tossed away, but to do so would likely break the small, badly abused organ known to be his heart. Tallying faces has become his habit instead, and even if it is a small number, the list is long enough to fully occupy his thoughts in the dark hours when sleep escapes him.

He can no longer deny the reality of the situation. Uryuu can imagine how the future will be. His friends will continue on having their wacky, life-threatening adventures, and he will stay where he is, watching them leave but never following. He'll know that they're in danger—because with Ichigo leading, how could they not be?—and he won't be able to do a thing to help or keep them safe. If they come back alive, he will breathe a sigh of relief where no one can see, and if they die in the course of their adventuring, Uryuu will just have to live with the knowledge that he willingly forfeited any right he had to protect them.

_Maybe… If I could throw them away so easily, then maybe it's better that they don't seem to notice that I've stopped talking. Maybe it's for the best, what's right. Why should they talk to me? I threw them away for power; why should they talk to me?_

For one brief moment, Uryuu wishes more than anything else that his grandfather was still alive. Soken would have been able to give him sound advice, whether he agreed with Uryuu's decisions or not. If Ryuuken knows the way to reverse the effects of the Sanrei Glove, chances are Soken knew as well, and if he had agreed to help Uryuu, the young Quincy doubts that his grandfather would have attached a cost to his help. Not such an unreasonable one, anyways.

Uryuu rids himself of that wish with a toss of the head. His grandfather is dead, and not coming back; if the old man's soul even survived what Mayuri did to it, Uryuu can be sure that he has since been reincarnated. Besides, even if he was still alive, Soken was certainly someone associated with the Shinigami; Uryuu wouldn't be able to speak to _him _either. Uryuu's stomach ties itself into knots as he remembers that Soken would have liked nothing better for there to be some level of cooperation between the Shinigami and what's left of the Quincy. He doesn't see how that's ever going to happen now.

Finding nothing resembling consolation in thin bedclothes and a thin mattress, Uryuu squirms in an attempt to find a comfortable position. There's nothing to be said of comfort tonight, but he tries anyway, writhing in the tangled sheets and wincing as he keeps rubbing against his bandages.

_I'm never going to be able to talk to them again. And for what? Power? Power offers no comfort, no happiness. It's power that's going to get me killed in the end; after all, it makes me such an appealing target to all the soul-eating monsters in the general vicinity._

_What am I supposed to do, make new friends? I don't know_ how_ to make friends; I can barely talk to people at all. The only reason I was "friends" with them in the first place because they sort of sucked me in to that little group of theirs. I never would have been able to form anything resembling a relationship with any of them on my own._

The future that Uryuu can see consists only of solitude. He will live his life out the way he did before Orihime and Ichigo and the rest, only this time with a bitter taste in his mouth, because he remembers the brief time in which he didn't live his life in isolation. _The loneliness of always having been alone is nothing compared to the loneliness that comes after having known something different._

The bandages itch and hollow footsteps creak overhead. A dull ache forms in the pit of his stomach. Empty thoughts race through Uryuu's mind, a bitter wish in a bitter world, and he tells himself that wishing is for fools. _There will be no solace here._


	164. 164: Martyrs

**Title**: Martyrs**  
>AN**: Ryuuken has another rant, though this time it's entirely in his head rather than partially. The subject this week is "teenagers." Man ought to get his own talk show if he wants an audience to complain to.  
><strong>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>Blue and silver light flashes against the gleaming walls, chasing the shadows away before inviting them back again. Though Ryuuken has introduced Uryuu to other things, they still engage in these "games" of Cat and Mouse (<em>Though the identities of the cat and the mouse have lately become more difficult to discern<em>). This, Ryuuken hopes, will have the effect of improving the areas in which he feels Uryuu to be lacking: his mastery of hirenkyaku, his aim and speed, his skill with the five-pronged bow, and the channeling of spiritual energy in general. Uryuu has relied on his cross pendant as a crutch for far too long.

_Where could he be hiding? _Soul-synthesized silver throws off Ryuuken's perception of reiatsu, as it would anyone else's. If Uryuu was in his line of sight, Ryuuken would have no trouble tracing the pulsating trail of spiritual energy back to its source, but with the boy out of sight, Ryuuken has a hard time separating Uryuu's spiritual pressure from the signature given off by the silver. Given the way he constructed the room, if Uryuu was tired Ryuuken would be able to hear him panting no matter where he stood, but he's not, so Ryuuken is stuck trying to separate two different yet similar signatures from each other.

_I knew that if the silver absorbed enough of Uryuu's arrows, eventually it would start to take on a signature similar to his own. If this was the first night, when all he had were those silver tubes, things would be easier, but it shouldn't be too hard, still. I still know the landscape better than he does._

_It could be worse, I suppose. If I was standing outside I wouldn't be able to pick up on Uryuu's spiritual energy at all._

Ryuuken's eyes narrow as he watches one of the shadows bulge and shiver. _Ah, there he is. _A single bolt of silver light robs Uryuu of his hiding place and the boy plunges into another patch of shadows.

"That trick again?" Ryuuken lets another arrow fly into the shadows where he saw Uryuu dive, but when the place is momentarily bathed in light, there's no sign of Uryuu himself. He apparently took the opportunity to go elsewhere in the split-second Ryuuken had to take to fire. "You ought to know better than to believe that the shadows will hide you for long."

Uryuu does not answer with words, and neither is Ryuuken met with shimmering blue fire. The boy just continues to hide, out of sight, using the fact that the silver now bears his energy as much as Ryuuken's to conceal him. He seems more concerned with evading the arrows than with firing back, his mind elsewhere, just as with the past few nights.

Ryuuken had to notice, and Uryuu is a fool if he thinks that his changing moods are invisible to all but himself. Lately, the boy's retorts have grown less heated, and have nearly stopped altogether, as he only responds to the most pointed of jibes nowadays; anyone else would likely be relieved that Uryuu has stopped with the constant back-talk, but Ryuuken knows him well enough to take this as a sign of something wrong. Instead, Uryuu, increasingly silent and morose, would fire back with arrows only, taking orders in silence and disturbing compliance. Well, mostly.

As he continues to fire, arrows mostly diving into the floors and walls, but occasionally biting flesh to leave blood on the ground, Ryuuken reflects that he likely knows what has been sucking the spirit out of his son.

_You made this choice willingly. Why regret it? _Ryuuken ignores the inconvenient truth that he wasn't really going to give Uryuu a choice to start with, and instead curls his lip, redoubling the attack and finally getting a response from Uryuu in the form of a few arrows from somewhere above. _You made this choice willingly, Uryuu; it's too late to regret it now._

The voice of reason in Ryuuken's mind has, by now, made sure to remind him that if Uryuu has been used or otherwise taken advantage of by the people he calls his "friends", it may well not have been the result of active, knowing malice on their parts. After all, teenagers aren't exactly known for being founts of empathy. More to the point, Ryuuken has clear enough memories of his own adolescence to know that teenagers can and often do treat their friends, even their closest friends, with remarkable insensitivity and callousness. They rarely notice anything wrong with their own behaviors until years later, so they're unlikely to see how their actions could hurt others or lead more self-destructive friends to harm.

Yes, _now _Ryuuken is willing to admit that the way Uryuu has been treated is just as likely to be due to typical teenage heartlessness as it is to them actively manipulating him for their own ends. However, that it may well carelessness rather than active manipulation does not change Ryuuken's stance at all.

_In the sorts of situations Uryuu and these others have been getting themselves into, carelessness can get you killed. He can't afford to surround himself with people who don't even notice when he's in a bad way. _Uryuu is better off away from them, Ryuuken maintains. He's obviously not high on their list of priorities, even if they are just being thoughtless as teenagers are wont to be; even if Uryuu looks after their safety in battle, it doesn't make up for the fact that they clearly don't take steps to ensure his safety when he can't defend himself against the many supernatural monsters lurking in Karakura Town.

_What Uryuu needs… What Uryuu needs is to wait until he's an adult so that his peers are adults with fully formed brains and some measure of human caring and understanding. Of course, given that Uryuu has next to no experience with relationships of any kind, he'll probably fall into the snare of the adult version of thoughtless teenagers._

_Now the only thing that remains is to make him see all of that._

A few hours later, they're both at the end of their ropes, far beyond ready to go home and rest. Ryuuken calls Uryuu down from the ledge he had been standing on, but does not allow him to leave.

In probably the greatest show of emotion he has given all night, Uryuu frowns dourly at him, eyes narrowing. He grows stiffer by the second, shoulders taut, a thin, blue vein jerking wildly in his left cheek. It's clear he wants nothing more than to go, to disappear into the darkness outside and sleep. Ryuuken's not quite ready for him to leave yet, though.

"Your mind was not on your work tonight, Uryuu," Ryuuken remarks, fingers itching for his lighter and a cigarette. _Not yet. I still need to talk to him. If I start to smoke I'll get sidetracked. _A light but steady pounding is forming in his head as it always does these days if he goes too long without a cigarette; Ryuuken resists the urge to curl his lip, though just barely.

Uryuu, however, gives in to temptation, and Ryuuken is greeted with a full frontal view of the teeth on the left side of the boy's mouth as his lip pulls away to reveal them. "I wasn't aware that you were gifted with telepathy," Uryuu retorts clumsily, looking away. Those dark blue eyes dart towards the door, lingering on the only way out of this chamber with longing.

"I wouldn't have to be to tell when your mind is elsewhere." Ryuuken tilts his head to one side and looks him over shrewdly. "You lose focus, start to make mistakes, get injured." He nods briskly to the gash that's left the skin on Uryuu's right arm torn open, and the boy scowls blackly. "The truth is written all over your face."

This time, Uryuu seems to have nothing to say. Instead of growing red as he normally does when agitated, Uryuu's pallor seems to grow more profound by the second, something so strained and so, _so _old playing about his stretched skin and his heavy eyes.

"You walked in to this with your eyes open," Ryuuken goads him, trying now to get any hint of strong emotion out of Uryuu. "You knew what you were doing." Again, Ryuuken neglects to remind himself that he was never going to give Uryuu a choice in the first place. That's not relevant to this conversation.

Sure enough, these words are enough to bring speech back to Uryuu's lips. However, the words are not what Ryuuken expected and provide no way to lead in to the conversation Ryuuken had intended to have.

"Maybe I did." Uryuu swallows heavily, the sound sickening to human ears, before drumming up resolve enough to go on, a hard light entering his eyes. "But so did you. If you hate this so much yourself, imagine what this, all of this—" Uryuu sweeps an arm out towards the room for emphasis "—says about you."

Ryuuken raises an eyebrow, refusing to give voice or any sign at all of his disquiet at this unexpected pronouncement. "Oh?"

Uryuu's eyes and face stay as hard and as old as they have been, something grim and ugly tugging at the corner of his lip. "We both seem to enjoy acting the martyr, but it's really just masochism in the end." Ryuuken can't be sure if the disgust in Uryuu's voice is against him or against Uryuu himself. "The 'noble' intention belied by the ugly truth," Uryuu mutters to himself, looking away for a moment before refocusing his attention back on his companion. "You hate your powers; I hate being here." The taut, tense thrum of a cracking temper throws off the tempo of the words. "And if even I have the self-honesty to admit it, admit that I'm just acting the martyr to cover for masochism, I'm sure you do as well, so I ask again. Why do this if you hate it so much?"

_Well… _In another situation, Ryuuken supposes he would have thought of a retort by now, something to knock Uryuu from his pedestal and cow him into submission. It was always so easy when Uryuu was a small child (_Well, almost always_). But there's nothing sharp and incisive he can think of cut to the heart of the situation; Uryuu, he realizes, has already done that.

_More clear-seeing than I gave him credit for._

He has no intention of giving him an answer. After a few moments of staring, slightly slack-jawed, at the pale face of his son, the headache and the drumming beneath his skin growing more insistent, Ryuuken finally composes himself to give a reply that sounds appropriately apathetic. "You're getting nastier," he remarks dryly, bestowing a thin frown.

That frown is met with a twisted smirk. "I am what you made me," Uryuu says simply, before, unbidden, he turns and leaves, clearly done with words.

-0-0-0-

Once outside, the hideous contortion painted on Uryuu's mouth is washed away and replaced by a somber frown.

_He looked so surprised. I ought to be happier. _

Those words had been the result of misery and self-castigation and the sudden, ugly desire to hurt Ryuuken the way he had always tried to hurt him. _I just wanted to see him crack, wanted to see some sign that he was human, and I got it. _For one moment, Ryuuken had stared at him, stunned and speechless, mouth slightly open, and Uryuu couldn't even experience the vindictive satisfaction of knowing he had rendered him lost for words.

He's finally scored a victory over Ryuuken, but it's hollow. It's just as hollow as the realization that he could make him bleed with his arrows, a victory that is no victory at all. There's no satisfaction to be found in blood drawn or words robbed, even if it can serve to drag Ryuuken off of that pedestal and display to all the world that he is human after all. There's only the bitter taste flooding Uryuu's mouth, and the sense of having sold out yet again.

No matter how many times he wins over Ryuuken, Uryuu will still be alone, and he'll still have to act like him just to score even the slightest victory. There's no joy in that.


	165. 165: Pedestal

**Title**: Pedestal**  
>AN**: And finally Uryuu learns the truth, though not the whole truth. The conversation in the first part of this oneshot has been adapted from the flashback in a previous oneshot I wrote, entitled _The Foolish and the Weak_. Obviously, I'm operating under updated characterization and I hope you'll like it.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>"Do you even know why the Sanrei Glove was created in the first place?" There is the smell of cigarette smoke clinging to Ryuuken's clothes this time, but the odor is decidedly stale and the last cigarette does not appear to have been recent enough to soothe his ragged temper.<p>

Uryuu is gasping slightly, and secretly quite glad that Ryuuken has allowed the particles of his silver bow to dissipate. _We must be nearly done; he wouldn't let his guard down otherwise. _Or maybe Uryuu is just so ready to be gone from here that he dismisses the notion that Ryuuken could very well be doing this to throw him off his guard; either way, he follows Ryuuken's cue, and feels the weight of concentrated spirit particles vanish from his hand.

No matter what Ryuuken attempts to intimate, Uryuu does think he's getting better with handling of the five-pronged bow. He no longer has much difficulty channeling his energy correctly, though Uryuu will readily admit that this shape would not be his first choice when hunting Hollows; _Simplicity seems best for that, along with sticking to what I'm best at. _However, when Uryuu looks at the seeming ease with which Ryuuken uses the same sort of bow, effortless and graceful in a dangerous sort of way, he can't help but hold himself up as inadequate in comparison. _I have to try harder, or else I'll always be ten steps behind him, struggling just to catch up._

Those words ensnare Uryuu's waning attention like a fox in a trap. _Now where does this come from? _There was nothing to lead in to this question, and the shrewd, ominous note in Ryuuken's voice gives Uryuu the distinct impression that it would be better for him if he left. _If only he wasn't blocking the door. I really don't like where this is going._

After waiting in thick, oppressive silence for a few moments more, Ryuuken sighs gustily and shakes his head. His fingertips go to his temple as though to rub away a headache, before falling limply to his side. "Your silence tells me that you do not." His glacial eyes freeze over a little more. "So… You utilized the Sanrei Glove without even knowing what it was."

That flat accusation—Uryuu isn't sure how he knows that those words are an accusation; he just does—sparks his mind and drives him to speak. Uryuu never told Ryuuken about the Sanrei Glove. "How did you—"

Uryuu is cut off with a disdainful sniff and another toss of the head. "Please." The level of icy contempt in Ryuuken's voice could be the winter's wind that froze Hell over. "There is no other device that could produce the symptoms I found you with. You do not give thought to the fact that others have information that you do not, and your grandfather never should have given you that wretched thing in the first place."

Against his better judgment… Okay, maybe not; more accurately, by now, the sense of defensiveness that overcomes him whenever Ryuuken brings up Uryuu's grandfather in conversation has reared its head, and Uryuu could not possibly care less about irrelevant things like "better judgment." _Don't drag him into this. Not again. If you're going to insult and slander, do it to someone who's still around to defend themselves. _"What do you mean?" Uryuu snaps, feeling the beginnings of angry color rising in his face.

"Given that you used the Glove so recklessly—" Uryuu feels a growl rise, unbidden, in his throat, and fights to quiet it "—I can guess at the breadth of your knowledge concerning the device." Ryuuken waves his hand in the air lazily, tipping back and forth. "Your grandfather would have told you that the Sanrei Glove is a tool of great destructive power. He would have said that, when employed correctly and later removed, the user is briefly granted extraordinary power. And," Ryuuken goes on, voice metamorphosing from lazy and bored to hard as stone in a heartbeat, "if the old man remembered sanity for even a moment when he gave you that thing, he would have warned you that removing it would result in the total loss of your spiritual powers."

None of this is at all new to Uryuu. Ryuuken has, in fact nailed the points that Soken made clear to him more than nine years earlier. However, Ryuuken has still not come to whatever point he is trying to make, and Uryuu is impatient to leave.

Before Uryuu can demand that Ryuuken get to the point, though, the silver-haired man lifts his voice into life again. "You used the Glove and gambled away your powers, all while involving yourself in matters that were _no concern of yours."_

_How exactly was Kuchiki-san being placed under threat of execution "no concern of mine?" _Uryuu all but fires back.

Ryuuken does not seem to care greatly about the way his son's face darkens. "This alone, I think, qualifies you for the epithet of "fool." However, that you seem to have used the Glove without knowing exactly what it is…" Lip curling, Ryuuken breaks off, staring off into space for a moment with an oddly abstracted look on his face. _Now what is this? _"Didn't you ever wonder why a tool such as the Sanrei Glove was ever created?"

Truth be told, no, Uryuu never has given it a great deal of thought. As a child, Uryuu had accepted the box containing the Glove from his grandfather without question. Children don't often question those whom they love and esteem, especially not when the loved one seems so serious. In the years that went on, Uryuu never really did think long and hard about the Sanrei Glove, except to wonder whether using it would be worth it. Nonetheless, Uryuu does not respond. He doesn't want to admit to any oversight, certainly not to Ryuuken, and he still has to wonder if this isn't some sort of attempt to smear his grandfather's name. Again.

"Once more, your silence speaks for you. So you never even gave a single thought as to why such a thing would be created." Ryuuken makes an odd _tsk_-ing sound in the back of his throat and gives a thin smirk. "After all, it's very strange that any Quincy would have created or subsequently used such a device, don't you think? The Sanrei Glove inhibits a Quincy's ability to form spiritual particles, forcing them to have give more of their concentration and focus. Oh yes, their focus is improved, but nothing is gained by that given that removing the Glove means the loss of all spiritual abilities, and the inhibiting qualities of the Glove could very well spell doom for a Quincy fighting against a Hollow.

"Furthermore—" Ryuuken adjusts his tie as though he finds the temperature of the room uncomfortably warm; personally, Uryuu can't help but find the room a bit chilly and growing chillier "—there is an issue that I have a hard time believing that even _you _failed to notice." His voice drips scorn and Uryuu can't help but respond.

"And what, exactly, is that?" Uryuu asks tightly, bristling all the while. _Don't lose your temper. You let him take your self-control and you give away whatever advantage you have._

Wind batters against the much-abused window (it's seen blood splattered on it, bodies slammed up against it, even had arrows barely miss it) and Ryuuken's lips pull horridly. "The Quincy are a race of hunters. They rely on their abilities to survive against the Hollows that would make them their prey. Though living, they live in the supernatural plane as much as Shinigami and Hollows and the like. Why on Earth would they ever create a device that, when used the way it's meant to, strips them of all of their spiritual powers, and eventually of their spiritual awareness as well?"

Uryuu hadn't thought of that, but he has to admit, however grudgingly, that Ryuuken has a point. _There isn't really any good reason. But why _would _earlier Quincy have created the Sanrei Glove, then? _"I don't know," he admits reluctantly.

Ryuuken snorts. "Of course you don't," he states dismissively. "It's not a story your grandfather's likely to have told you," comes the dark remark. "Besides, you don't seem to be possessed of a great deal of curiosity into the lives of your ancestors to begin with."

"Now I—" Uryuu interjects, before being rapidly cut off.

Hard brown eyes flash dangerously and Uryuu falls back to silence. _I wait and pray for the day when that doesn't intimidate me, not even a little bit. _"On the other hand," Ryuuken resumes, voice raised significantly and showing hints of true anger for the first time tonight, before returning to his normal tones, "I do believe that you need to know where the tool your grandfather gave you came from. It might clear up some… _misconceptions _you seem to have.

"In short, the Sanrei Glove was created by an exceptionally desperate forebear of ours during the war with the Shinigami, for the express purpose of combating their foes."

_What? _If Ryuuken's intent from the start was to gain Uryuu's undivided attention, he has certainly achieved that end. Uryuu couldn't tear his eyes from him if he wanted to, transfixed in a sort of horrified fascination, standing rapt on Ryuuken's every word.

Ryuuken's expression grows grimmer and darker with every passing moment. He finally resolves the issue of his twitching hands by folding his arms about his chest. The ugly scowl contorting Ryuuken's face has only grown more grotesque. "The Quincy race was never what anyone could call a cohesive community. It consisted of clans and family groups scattered across the Earth, groups that did not often have any contact with each other. When the Shinigami struck, the Quincy clans found themselves nearly universally isolated from anyone capable of assisting them. They also found themselves against foes who could take more physical punishment than they, and were as thieves in the night, as well as having a decided advantage in close-quarter combat.

"One of our ancestors created a weapon, discovered it to be effective, made more, and eventually, these weapons came into possession of other Quincy not of our line who were in the general area at the time." Ryuuken's voice is deadly quiet and utterly belied by the increasingly fierce glare hardening his eyes. "The Sanrei Glove, as it later came to be known, allowed the user to become what essentially amounted to a suicide bomber. It was never meant for anything else."

_Suicide bomber? _Uryuu feels something cold and heavy settle in the pit of his stomach. He starts to wish that he could rip his gaze from Ryuuken's stony face.

"A Quincy who wore a Sanrei Glove would, for a short period of time after removing the Glove would be gifted with an extraordinary amount of destructive power. I'm sure you noticed this," Ryuuken comments bitingly, "when you removed the Glove in Seireitei."

Uryuu's heart jolts in alarm when footsteps echo off the walls. Ryuuken comes to a stop less than a foot away from him, far too close for Uryuu's comfort. His gaze bores into him. Uryuu remembers the days of his childhood when he thought this man's eyes could strip away his skin and divine all of his secrets, and even now, he wonders if his childhood assumptions hadn't been correct.

"Once granted this power, the Quincy would make good use of time and use that power to mow down as many Shinigami as they could. However, give it about ten to fifteen minutes, the effect would pass, and the user would invariably die. The now defenseless Quincy was likely to be killed by any Shinigami who survived the onslaught, but just as often, the massive reiatsu drain was enough to kill them." Ryuuken leans forward; Uryuu can easily trace the thin, fine lines around his eyes and notes that there aren't any about his mouth—_Though I suppose there wouldn't be, considering he never smiles. _"That neither of these things happened to you is nothing more than a matter of _sheer, dumb luck."_

Too busy struggling to digest the information just imparted upon him, Uryuu says nothing. His mind can't form thoughts; his mouth is incapable of giving speech. After a while of peering intently into his face, Ryuuken sniffs and turns to leave, fetching his jacket from where he had laid it, folded neatly, on the ground.

Before he goes, however, Ryuuken apparently feels the need to fire off one more shot. "Suicide bombers, senile old men and idiot children who use a weapon without having any real idea of what it is and why it was created. Thank you so much, Uryuu—" The sarcasm with which he gives his thanks is rivaled only by a strange bitterness, the words starting to crack just a little bit "—for continuing the tradition of foolishness so favored by our wretched line."

-0-0-0-

The only sound is that of a clock ticking from the bedroom, steady ticks never missing a beat, loud enough to be heard, but quiet enough that, from the cramped living room, it's not intrusive. All else is silence; it's such a time of night—or morning—that apparently either no one is awake overhead, or they're being considerate of their neighbors by keeping quiet. Either way, sitting in the deep darkness with his heart barely beating, Uryuu is left with no respite from his racing thoughts.

_I never thought… I didn't know… For God's sake, how was I _supposed _to know?_

He supposes he should have wondered, though. Ryuuken's right. There was never any good reason for any Quincy to create a weapon like the Sanrei Glove. _Except for warfare, in desperate attempts to win battles against far-superior foes. I never thought about it, but it makes so much sense. The Glove isn't something you'd use against Hollows; it makes so much sense._

His bandages itch and, frankly, Uryuu doesn't care, nor does he even notice. Physical concerns aren't really registering right now.

Uryuu does not like to think that he has perpetuated an apparently bloody tradition of desperation practiced by his kin. He tries to tell himself that if he used the Sanrei Glove, it was because he wanted to be strong enough to help rescue Rukia, because he wanted to be strong enough to protect his friends from harm. The truth, however, is glaring. Uryuu may have wanted to help Rukia, but he had first donned the Sanrei Glove because he knew he needed to be stronger to _fight _the Shinigami. He may have wanted to help Rukia, but in the end, Uryuu wore the Glove to give him strength to fight the Shinigami, and he took it off in an attempt to kill one. That Mayuri had done things that, in Uryuu's eyes, more than warranted his death, doesn't matter; he took the Glove off to kill Shinigami, just as his ancestors did.

_You can't change a weapon's meaning if you don't know what that meaning is. Sometimes, you can't change it at all. Sometimes, it's futile even to try._

It's possible that Ryuuken was lying to him. Uryuu wouldn't put it past him, if Ryuuken wanted to make him bleed, cry, crack or anything. If Ryuuken wants to make someone break, he _will _make them break, no matter how long it takes for that to happen nor whatever falsehoods or words of hurt he has to spin. He could very well be lying, just to make Uryuu lose his faith in what little he still pays faith to.

However, Uryuu can't confirm truth or deception either way, and Ryuuken's never had to lie to hurt him. And again, Ryuuken is right. It makes no sense that a race of hunters would create a weapon that strips them of their ability to hunt, unless the prey was something that truly outmatched them. No Quincy would ever use the Sanrei Glove against a Hollow. Uryuu wouldn't.

There is another consideration that tugs uncomfortably at him no matter how he attempts to word it. _Why did Grandfather give it to me in the first place?_

Uryuu can't understand why Soken would have given him the Sanrei Glove, given that he had to have known its original purpose—if Ryuuken knows, Soken knew as well. _He always kept me out of harm's way; why would he give me something like that. _"Who gives suicide weapons to little kids?" Uryuu wonders aloud in frustration. "Who does that?" _Grandfather, apparently, _he thinks to himself, twisting his mouth in a grimace.

_Why would he give it to me? Grandfather said he wanted us to be able to cooperate with the Shinigami, and then he turns around and gives me a weapon that was used to kill them. What does that say? What does that say about him, and me, and all of us?_

Clinging to wakefulness, Uryuu roots through his memories and tries to think of any reason Soken might have had for giving him the Sanrei Glove. Any hint that he was aware of a threat, that he honestly thought that Uryuu would be in a position to need it. Uryuu can't find any. He can understand that Soken might have taken his age as a reason not to tell him why the Sanrei Glove had been created, but in all of his memories, all of his thoughts, he can't think of a single reason, as to why Soken would have reasonably thought it was a good idea to give him the Glove.

_I know he wasn't infallible. Everyone makes mistakes, and Grandfather is not unique. But still… _Maybe Soken, while a definite emotional support in those days and always on-hand with solid advice, wasn't quite the bastion of common sense Uryuu thought him to be. Or maybe he had his ulterior motives, just like everyone else in Uryuu's life seems to have. Uryuu isn't sure which alternative he likes less.

_It's not like I'm ever going to be able to ask him to find out, _Uryuu reflects bitterly. He was a child when his grandfather died; he had adored him and trusted him completely. Whatever his grandfather told him, he accepted without question. If Soken gave him something for safekeeping, he took it and did exactly what his grandfather told him to. Why should he question him?

_Everyone gets dragged from their pedestal eventually, I suppose._

He'll never have his answers; the only one who could have given them is dead and gone. Uryuu's swallows on the hard, hot knot in his throat as he thinks of the words that will have to remain trapped in the cage of his mouth.

It's time to go to bed. The day tomorrow will not care that he has learned things tonight that have fractured faith and engendered doubt in everything about his life and himself; Uryuu has to get some sleep if he wants to face it.

Only as he stands to go close the curtains does Uryuu realize that it's raining, so lost in thought has he been that he didn't even hear it start. He watches in numb fascination as water beads slide down the darkened glass, forming shapes and blurring the streetlamp-lit world outside.

After a long moment, Uryuu shuts the curtains, and goes to bed.


	166. 166: Inconvenience

**Title**: Inconvenience**  
>AN**: Their needling at each other has sort of been escalating for a few chapters now. I continue the trend here.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>Uryuu winces as he raises his right arm. He has no time for such considerations now but the bandages, wound about his skin from elbow to wrist, are uncomfortably tight, restricting the movement of his arm. <em>I have to get past it.<em> It's still a struggle not to flinch as he holds his arm straight, trying to line up his aim to shoot at Ryuuken.

"_Sit down. Those bandages aren't tight enough." Ryuuken's brisk tone is the sort that brooks absolutely no opposition, dry and unemotional as he points to the floor._

_Personally, Uryuu can't help but feel that that tone is the sort one takes with a recalcitrant dog, but though the thought rankles, he quells the words that could well have gotten him in trouble. It's too early in the game to be starting this. Later, they'll be falling into the old pattern, but Uryuu doesn't need to say anything provocative while Ryuuken is in such close proximity to him._

_Careful not to put weight on any particularly sore spots, Uryuu lowers himself to the ground. Ryuuken gets down on one knee beside him and matter-of-factly begins to unwind the bandages around his arm with one hand, the other clenched tightly around Uryuu's wrist to keep him from pulling away. Uryuu's skin crawls at the pressure, but he refuses to own up to discomfort._

_The gash, a scabbed-over, jagged line, is a glaring wound on his bony arm and Uryuu's eyes occasionally stray to Ryuuken's face as the latter examines the laceration, trying to discern some hint of emotion in that hard, impassive face. _What am I looking for? _He wonders to himself in frustration. _Regret, remorse or some hint of human compassion? Why on Earth would I be looking for that in _him?_

_Eventually, just as Ryuuken is starting to wind the bandages back over, Uryuu can no longer keep from speaking. "I suppose you're wondering why I didn't say anything about this," he mutters, sullen despite all efforts not to be._

_Still focused on the bandages, Ryuuken's eyebrows shoot up, and Uryuu can catch the hint of a twitch in his lips. "Oh, no."_

_There comes a sharp tug on the bandages, then another, then another, each worse than the last. As much as he wishes he could hide the pain that these actions inspire, he flinches at every vicious tug, hissing out from between his clenched teeth._

"_It's because you don't trust me." Ryuuken punctuates every word with a pull on the bandages. There's a strangely angry note in his voice. "Isn't that right, Uryuu?"_

No time to worry about bandages or about the fact that they've been wound so tight that it's impeding the movement of his arm. Ryuuken's not going to give him time to grow used to the restricting bandages, not if the silver arrows impacting on the red-washed walls around him are any indication.

_Where did he go? _Uryuu's keen eyes dart about the shadowed places and the sheer, smooth walls. There's no trace of Ryuuken anywhere, no moving shadows nor squeak of shoe soles.

Well, there are the arrows; Uryuu can always use the arrows to try to figure out where Ryuuken is. Uryuu dodges another volley of singing arrows and narrows his eyes as he traces their path. When he thinks he's figured out where the arrows are coming from, he shoots, blue light banishing the shadows. No blood falls and he gets no verbal response, but Uryuu thinks he can see one of the shadows flutter away.

_I've got to lure him in closer, so I'll be surer of hitting the mark. _The thought of shooting Ryuuken again as he did a few nights ago makes Uryuu's stomach churn—_I don't like the sight of his blood nearly so much as I thought I would_—but he shelves that feeling and roots through his mind, thinking of something, anything that could bring Ryuuken within his line of sight and at the same time make him lower his guard.

_Pretending to be injured won't work. It'll just make the attacks even fiercer—his attempt to get me to give up. _No pretending to be the wounded bird; all that will do is end with Uryuu being the _dead _bird. He'll have to think of some other way to get Ryuuken off his guard, so he can get this over with and go home.

As a few more minutes wear on, filled with the crash of arrows against floors that soon heal and the pounding of footsteps, but, oddly, not with veiled insults or arguments; they've both been oddly silent tonight, not speaking a word. _I suppose… I suppose I could try to make him angry._

Making Ryuuken angry would work well as a way to make him lower his guard. This plan does have its element of risk, however. Uryuu may make him angry only to find that Ryuuken finds rage as useful a focusing tool as he does, and subsequently find himself quite outmatched. It might backfire, and Ryuuken will turn Uryuu's efforts on him. He is more than capable of that. Uryuu can't really think of anything else, however, that would work, not against such an opponent.

_I think I know just the thing, _Uryuu realizes, squaring his jaw grimly, _and if it goes the way I want it to, I may end up getting some answers. _For a moment, he hesitates, wondering if he really should go this far, before steeling his resolve, and telling himself that Ryuuken's never had any pity on him, so he shouldn't be worrying about him.

"You know, I've always wondered why you never would tell me anything about her," Uryuu calls out to the shadows, eyes sweeping the area. _Come on, take the bait._

For a few moments, there is silence, and Uryuu groans inwardly, believing that it didn't work after all. _Of course he wouldn't fall for that. He has to know what I'm trying to do. He wouldn't be that stupid. Of course he wouldn't._

Then there comes a voice out of the shadows, leaping from so many alcoves at once that Uryuu is left spinning in his attempt to identify the source. "Would you care to elaborate?" To anyone else, there would be no noticeable inflection, but Uryuu can catch the uncertainty riding with the words.

Another arrow comes, and Uryuu isn't wearing the base expression of alarm he normally would at such an onslaught. Instead, a strange, feverish light comes into his eyes. _Alright, I've hooked him—he's fallen for it after all. _Uryuu fires into the shadows, and the light reveals nothing. _Now I've got to keep him hooked, and get him out into the open. Oh, and if I die, it should be noted that this was _not _a good idea._

Uryuu swings his head around like an unlatched door assaulted by the wind. "My mother, I mean." There is a sharp pain gnawing in the pit of his stomach; Uryuu ignores it the way he's learned to ignore, or at least try to ignore, all pain. "I couldn't help but be curious about her. After all, it wasn't like you ever talked about her."

This time, Ryuuken's response is nearly immediate. "Your memory seems to betray you, Uryuu. I have, you will recall, told you how she died." There's a deadliness to the casual way he gives the words.

The sharp pain in Uryuu's stomach becomes a fire, or maybe claws tearing up the acid-stained walls. "Oh yes." Bile bubbles in his throat before he quells it fiercely, reminding himself that he's trying to make _Ryuuken _lose his focus, not the other way around. "Trust me, I remember. All too well." _It's not like I could ever forget that day. _"You just told me her cause of death, though. That she was eaten by a Hollow tells me nothing of how she came to be in that position."

"I fail to see how it matters," Ryuuken answers tightly. Uryuu can hear the rhythmic taps of footsteps against the solid floor, but he can't make out where they're coming from. _Come on, break cover. _"Death is the final act of life. All that matters is that the life has been snuffed out, _not _how life came to end.

"Now is neither the time nor the place for such a conversation. You should focus—" Uryuu lets out a gasp as a single shaft of light erupts just inches from him, and he finds himself darting towards into the shelter of the ever-growing shadows "—on what at present occupies your time. You become careless all too easily, Uryuu, and I say to you now: _It does not matter._"

"It does matter!" Uryuu exclaims, bringing the bowstring taut before letting go. His heart is pounding in his throat. _Remember why you're doing this. Remember. _"Whether it's your closest friend or your worst enemy, how they come to find themselves dead matters. There are so many ways you can come to find yourself killed by a Hollow. You can be a Quincy trying to kill one or a Shinigami trying to purify it, and find yourself outmatched. You can be a hapless bystander, finding yourself chased because you have enough power to attract their attention but not enough to fend them off."

For a few moments, he says nothing more. Uryuu suddenly finds words clogging in his throat, refusing to rise up through his mouth. _Come on._ Finally, he goes on, just a touch thickly. "You could be looking for a way to die—"

"Suicide?" That interjection comes with no small amount of incredulity. "Uryuu, the taking of one's life is usually done with the desire that it be relatively painless, or at least quick. There are few who would choose otherwise. Can you honestly think of someone who would actually _choose _suicide by Hollow?"

Uryuu swallows hard. "It's how I'd do it," he admits reluctantly, so quiet that even in this chamber where the smallest of whispers seems to echo forever, the words barely reverberate at all.

In truth, Uryuu has never given a great deal of thought to how he would choose to end his life, if it ever got to that point. True, he's always been more than a little preoccupied with the concept of death, and there have been moments, plenty of moments, when Uryuu hasn't been particularly happy with life. However, that's not to say he's ever devoted much thought to suicide. _It is how I'd do it, though. A chance to die on my feet and go out like a hunter, even if it wouldn't be pleasant. I don't think I'd ever like to deteriorate in old age or illness, or find myself forever handicapped by an injury, unable to hunt. Anything to avoid that._

Ryuuken either didn't hear him or doesn't seem to care. They both resume shooting in the dark, finding that their arrows connect only with shadows. No more words are said and Uryuu's brow furrows in frustration. _I'm just going to have to try a different tack, one even more underhanded than that last one. Oh well. He seems to be a proponent of the "Get whatever advantage over your opponent that you can" school of fighting. Maybe it's time he gets a taste of what that feels like._

"So what's your involvement in this?"

"Once again, Uryuu, the way you choose to couch your words is entirely too vague. You're going to have to be more explicit in your wording if you wish to get anywhere."

"You could have stopped it," Uryuu states flatly, and forgets that this wasn't ever meant to be a real confrontation.

As with the thoughts of how he would choose to end his life if it ever came to that, Uryuu hasn't devoted much thought to the subject before this moment. All of his nights and days since the discovery that Ryuuken has power at his fingertips have been spent shedding his blood and struggling to catch up in the interim. He's barely had enough time to breathe, let alone think. Certainly, he's made time to think of other implications, other regrets and other fears, this one hasn't crossed his mind. Not until now.

Ryuuken knows how his wife died. Even if he hates every part of his heritage and refuses to kill Hollows under most circumstances, he knows that his wife was killed by a Hollow. Uryuu has seen how much power he holds in his hands and knows that most normal Hollows wouldn't stand a chance in Hell against Ryuuken if he decided to kill them. He could have easily killed the Hollow menacing his wife, but apparently he didn't.

Uryuu knows he is about as far as he can possibly be from having a clue of what happened that day so many years ago. He knows that he has no information as to how his mother came to be killed by a Hollow. For all he knows he could be completely barking up the wrong tree. However, if she died that way, Ryuuken could have done something to stop it. He knows that much. _You could have stopped it. You could have saved her. She never would have died if you had intervened. So why didn't you?_

Once again, Ryuuken seems to have no answer to his son's words, though from the increasing frequency of his fired arrows, Uryuu gets the impression that his temper is finally starting to fray. He's not going to leave off on this note, though; Uryuu has no intention of ever doing that.

"We both know that any run-of-the-mill Hollow doesn't stand a chance against you, not if you catch it while its attention isn't focused on you." Uryuu darts onto a ledge, then another, sweeping the area with his eyes and making sure Ryuuken isn't behind him, or near enough for those arrows to do more than just slash skin and burn flesh. His bandaged arm is starting to ache, but Uryuu knows better than to let that show. "You could have stopped it from killing her. You could have done so easily."

Arrows are fired at him in place of words, so many and so fast that Uryuu can well guess what Ryuuken would have said if he hadn't chosen to shoot.

"Where were you when she was being killed?" Uryuu demands, curling his lip. "Where were you?"

At that, a leaden hand descends on his shoulder from behind. Uryuu whirls around, long enough for Ryuuken to shove him away from him, so hard that he stumbles back a few steps.

"Your mother has been dead for more than fourteen years," Ryuuken says, so quietly that Uryuu can almost believe that he's imagining the coldness, more frigid than the deepest winter, hanging on to the words. "Too young, too soon. Yes, she was killed by a Hollow." His formerly quiet voice isn't so quiet anymore; it rises with every word. "Yes, she died a preventable death. And where, you ask, was I when this was happening? I can tell you where I was while your mother was dying. I was at home, taking care of _you," _he snarls hoarsely.

The look of hatred that comes over Ryuuken's face for one moment is so piercing that Uryuu can say nothing to it, and only stand, open-mouthed, staring at him. The light from his bow puts Ryuuken's face in an unflattering cast, showcasing every one of his years, and Uryuu doesn't think he has ever seen so much raw emotion on the man's face as he does now. Anger, hate, and something else that makes his jaw lock and his glassy eyes shine brightly.

Then, Uryuu remembers why he started this "conversation" in the first place and fires. Despite being barely a foot away from him, Ryuuken dodges easily, and returns the favor.

This time, one of Ryuuken's arrows hits skin, and Uryuu hisses from between clenched teeth as blood flies from his side. After a moment devoted to beating a retreat—_So now _I'm _the one forced to hide_—he composes himself enough to incredulously demand, "You blame me, then?"

"Excuse me?" Ryuuken seems to have regained that aloof self-possession he was always so gifted with.

It's all Uryuu can do to keep the words even and to ignore the pain in his stomach that now reasserts itself, screaming like a banshee for attention. "You blame me for her death as an inconvenience? That's all I've ever been to you, after all," he asserts bitterly, wondering if this is genuine sentiment or just teenage angst rearing its head. "An inconvenience, an obligation, because you couldn't save her."

"Get out."

"I—"

"Get out, Uryuu, before I remove you myself!" Ryuuken snaps harshly, an ugly draw on the command.

And so Uryuu does. It's all he wanted, after all, to leave, even if doing so now leaves a dull pain in his stomach, and him wondering in his mind just what he's woken up.


	167. 167: Listen

**Title**: Listen**  
>AN**: A long, _long _time ago, I wrote a oneshot called _Chinese Takeout_, featuring Orihime and Uryuu. As with pretty much of my early works, the characterization was… _different_, and the writing style was different as well. You can use that oneshot as a reference to Orihime's visit if you want to—I like to think I explained adequately why she was there in this chapter—but not all of it fits into the canon of this collection, both because of updated characterization (I'm using that term a lot lately) and for relatively unimportant technical reasons.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>Orihime turns in the parking lot as she's leaving and waves goodbye, her arm outstretched towards the heavens. The sky behind her is purple as a freshly-laid bruise and the sliver visible of the moon is barely visible but she's standing near a streetlamp, and as she lifts her head, the light catches on her hairpins, gleaming like twin green stars. Uryuu raises a hand weakly, unable to raise a smile even to match even the small, wistful one she bears, and keeps watching, silent, as she reaches the street. <em>No use. Too late, no use.<em>

By all rights, he should have never let her in. He never should have spoken to her, nor even have acknowledged that he heard her call his name from the parking lot. Ryuuken's terms are painfully clear, and so much as looking her in the eye and acknowledging that he'd seen her was a violation of the terms they'd agreed to. Uryuu does try to keep his promises, even if they do hurt.

But he hadn't. Uryuu couldn't bring himself to ignore her and slam the door in her face; he will admit that he's capable of being rude, but not quite _that _rude, at least not to someone who's done nothing to deserve such behavior. The promise he'd made nagged at him as she stepped forward, but after a long moment and the sight of that friendly smile (_it had been so long since anyone had smiled at him_), he had decided that Ryuuken never had to know about this.

It had been so long since he had last spoken to someone who wasn't criticizing, mocking, or berating him that after a moment of indecision, Uryuu was easily able to quell the voice that spoke "_But you gave your word!" _Just one night for a nice, non-combative conversation. When Orihime had asked, he'd let her in, and haven't given another thought to his squirming conscience. And now, all he can do is watch her shrink in the distance, and narrow his eyes as his face settles back into grim uncertainty.

Needless to say, the night had been quiet. They'd eaten—even if Uryuu doesn't have a great deal of food on hand it seems impolite to have a guest at this time of night and not at least offer food—and spoken a little, enough for Uryuu to get a rough idea of what was going on with Orihime and the others, though he got the impression, just from how vague she was, that he wasn't being told much of the whole story. Oh well. It's not like that's anything new, and if Orihime is withholding information, she's doing it either because she has a very good reason, or because she simply assumed Uryuu already knew. So he hopes, anyways.

All throughout, Uryuu had to fight to keep from stumbling over his words and, despite his attempts to quiet his conscience, he kept getting the oddest vision of Ryuuken bursting through the door with the sort of expression on his face that spelled out doom. _I really am quite paranoid, aren't I?_

And now, all this serves to do is highlight, in stark detail, the completely different world Uryuu lives in from her and all the others.

_She lives in a completely different world. I don't think that she could ever imagine that, not even two hours ago, I was goading a man about his wife's death, knew it hurt him and kept on anyways—and I'm probably going to catch it bad for that later. I don't think she could imagine someone in her world being so cruel. I wonder how she'd react if she found out._

No. She doesn't know, and Uryuu couldn't bear to tell her, couldn't bear to answer when she asked "_Why haven't you been speaking to any of us lately?" _Orihime's world is a world where people might do bad things, but are on a whole decent people despite their deeds. He can't stand to disabuse her of that notion, to tell her exactly why he hasn't spoken to her for weeks, why he should never have spoken to her tonight, and why he'll go right back to ignoring her tomorrow. It hurts his pride too much to admit het extent to which he has debased himself, and, deep down, Uryuu supposes he doesn't want to think of the way Orihime or any of the others would think of him if they knew that he had thrown them away for power.

Uryuu frowns. For maybe half an hour, he was able to have a somewhat normal conversation with someone else and almost, not quite but _almost_, forget the web he has entangled himself in. Just to talk to someone who didn't know, who didn't judge him for the choice he had made was more than he could have dreamed of when he first entered into his pact with Ryuuken. All the same, there seemed something wrong with the whole thing. Well, maybe not "something wrong", so much as "something off."

To know Orihime is to know that, though she puts forth an admirable face of cheer and optimism in situations that would normally evoke anything but, she is as much afflicted by doubt as the next person. Their conversations while trying to lay low in the Soul Society tells Uryuu that she has some self-esteem issues, and just from watching the way she acts around him he gets the impression that she has a bit of a crush on Ichigo, which Uryuu can't help but think is a guaranteed sign of mental dysfunction in _anyone._

Orihime does a good job of making people think that she's happier than she actually is, such a good job that Uryuu is sure that she's been using happiness as a mask for far longer than he's known her. _And it certainly is an effective mask, too. When you smile, people flock to you even if you feel like you're dying on the inside. If you make your distress clear they only scatter like the wind. I don't suppose anyone ever really wants to be rejected because they're sad._

There's just something… _stretched _about that smile. Something stretched, something strained. Not a falsehood but not entirely the truth either. It's not agony Uryuu thinks he's seeing beneath her strained smile, just the façade slipping a little bit, finally growing too much for Orihime to keep up completely, and letting the undercurrents of melancholy and feelings of inadequacy shine through in part.

If Orihime feels inadequate, Uryuu can sympathize; _I haven't felt like I was good enough since I met all you people, _he thinks to himself sardonically. As for the melancholy, well, Uryuu doesn't really know a great deal about Orihime; she doesn't volunteer information and he doesn't pry. He's not sure where that comes from.

And that's just the thing. The lat time Uryuu checked, Orihime was either genuinely happy or good enough at hiding not to let the sadness slip and other people see it. But it's been so long since he was last able to speak to her that, somewhere in the interim, whatever dissatisfaction she has with life has grown enough that even a bright, sunny smile isn't enough to keep him from seeing it.

"_Oh, everything's fine." Orihime's hand flutters in the air like an overwrought bird ready to take to the skies. "Same old, same old. Tatsuki-chan beat up Chizuru-chan last week again, but she didn't really hurt her. She just bruised her a little bit. You know," Orihime remarks, eyes widening, "I think she actually likes it a little bit—Chizuru-chan, I mean."_

_Personally, that thought is enough to make Uryuu snort into his glass, but mercifully, Orihime doesn't notice. Meanwhile, he can't help but notice how the lighthearted cheer in her voice rings just a little false._

She talked about knowing that something was coming, and not knowing enough about it to be sure that she'd be ready when it came; a 'storm on the horizon' is what Uryuu thinks she called it. If she means the conflict between the renegade Shinigami and the main forces of the Soul Society, Uryuu supposes he agrees with her. _When Shinigami fight each other the collateral damage involved is cataclysmic. She has a right to be worried. _Still, that doesn't account for what he's seen.

Only a couple of weeks, and she seems so different, already becoming something of a stranger. If this is how different Orihime has become, Uryuu doesn't want to think of the changes that might have been wrought in the others. _I suppose they could all be complete strangers by now, people I don't know anymore. Funny how quickly things change. And I… I wasn't around to witness any of it, and I won't be around to witness more change._

_I've changed too, though I suppose that in my case I should be glad that no one was there to see it. There's nothing good about becoming the sort of person willing to goad a man about his wife's death just to make him lose his temper. I'm glad no one was around to watch me turn into _that. _Still, they'll keep on changing until I don't recognize them at all for the people they've become, and until they've changed so much that I've become totally irrelevant to their lives._

Scowling, Uryuu shakes his head. _This is no time for self-pity. You made your bed, now lie in it. You've already removed yourself from their world. Why should anyone care that you were once in it, and think to tell you when they undergo this sort of drastic change? You could barely cling to the edges of their world when you had a right to be there._

_Orihime smiles, her eyes crinkling with the first bit of fully genuine good humor he's seen from her tonight. "You know, you are one of the few people whom I have never had trouble getting to listen to me. That's really quite a feat, Ishida-kun."_

Uryuu's lip quirks downwards as he tips his chin downwards. _Listener? Some listener. I couldn't even pick up in the changes in you until they were flaunted in front of my face. Listening is pretty much all I can do now, though, _he thinks bitterly. _Sorry, Inoue-san. Sorry, everybody. That's all I can do._

When Uryuu looks up, he realizes that he can't see Orihime anymore. The dull violet sky, the flickering street lamps, the battered cars screaming as they pass and the dingy buildings with their peeling paint and crumbling plaster have swallowed as she makes her long walk home. She has disappeared. Uryuu is met only with the screech of tires, the blaring of a television on upstairs, and the eerie wailing of ambulance sirens in the distance. Swallowing on the bitterness in his throat, Uryuu disappears too, slamming the door behind him.


	168. 168: Trapped

**Title**: Trapped**  
>AN**: This is a direct continuation of the last chapter. For the eagle-eyed and those who have read some of my other works, there is a reference to _Prelude to Invasion _in this chapter.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>Once back inside, Uryuu puts the plates left on the table in the sink, running water and scrub brush over them absently before setting them to dry on the drying rack; he has no great love of letting dishes pile up in the sink. The warm, sticky aroma of leftover takeout still permeates the room and Uryuu can't help but the air too close and too still for comfort.<p>

Now, Uryuu turns his attention to the glasses. _Let's just get everything washed so I don't have to worry about it tomorrow. _He tips out the contents of the two glasses into the sink, deliberately allowing his mind to stray nowhere. _Oh. _As Uryuu is running water over the glass he drank from tonight, he notices a shallow indentation on the clear rim. _It's chipped. Oh, well. _He sighs slightly as he puts the glasses on the drying rack next to the plates.

Uryuu looks around the breadth of his apartment, eyes finally settling on the books left open on his futon couch—he'd had to remove them from their position, stacked high on the kitchen table, when Orihime came inside. He still has homework, and plenty of it; there wasn't enough time to finish all of it before he had to go off to the hospital. It's not like there was any time to do it once he got home, either; Uryuu had just barely managed to treat the gash on his side when he stepped outside for some fresh air and heard Orihime calling his name from the parking lot.

_I… I… _Uryuu squeezes his eyes tightly shut, teeth clenching in frustration. This may well have been the last time he would ever be able to speak to her, or any of the others, for that matter. A half-hour's worth of disobedience has not brought him any peace, nor any closure, but only regret and bitterness even more intense than before. That's what happens, he supposes, when a person gets one brief taste of the life they used to have, only to watch it—literally—walk out the front door; it's not a perfect life, not by any stretch of the word, but still better than the one occupied now.

He ought to have made his peace with this by now. Though the taste of loss and weakness is acrid in his mouth, Uryuu knows he ought to have come to terms with his enforced isolation by now, but he hasn't. If he had, he would have slammed the door in Orihime's face, been able to do so with only small regret, and severed all ties to the world he abandoned. Instead, by acknowledging her presence, Uryuu is forced to admit that he's still railing against the reality of his situation. _I never should have made that promise._

_I have to get used to it. There's nothing that will happen that will void the fact that I gave my word not to talk to them nor acknowledge them anymore. Tonight will be the last time; it has to be. I shouldn't have even spoken to her tonight._

There's no use, nothing for it. Uryuu has trapped himself, and the walls grow close and stifling. He can't take his mind off of the need to stretch out his arms so he isn't crushed. That's what his life has come down to in these days: trying to fit thought in with need, trying to make room between all the instincts, all the visceral fears for rational thought. His mind has gotten a little… _stretched, _to be honest, stretched like Orihime's too-wide smile and all the truths that have been strained so far and stretched so thin that they can no longer be distinguished from lies.

The whole world is like that, really, so much so that Uryuu can't make out the distorted forms, at least not tonight. Superficially, the people of the world and their objects retain their shape. Beneath, Uryuu feels like the world has suddenly become a toddler's finger painting, filled with crude stick figures bearing grotesque expressions, all parading down the street in a line, hands clasped on their faces. They look like they would break the world screaming if their artist had just remembered to give them lungs.

Uryuu ought to be doing his homework now, getting it done so he doesn't have to worry about it tomorrow or any other day, but instead his feet, those tired, sore, disobedient feet, carry him to the bathroom, flipping on the pitiless light that washes everything in white.

He needs to put fresh bandages on over his arm, more so people won't be alarmed at the sight of the gash and ask questions than to keep from dripping blood everywhere. The bandages Ryuuken tied so tightly are loose again, and it may be Uryuu's imagination or a trick of the light, but the gauze seems to be yellowing, just a little bit.

_Maybe I should wait until after showering to change my bandages. But what about the new one? _Uryuu lifts his shirt long enough to see that the patch bandage he put over the gash on his side is already heavy and scarlet with blood, saturated beyond limits. He shakes his head, sporting a strange twist of the lips. _Saturated already. Yeah, I don't think I'm going to have to wait. _

Come to mention it, Uryuu is just now noticing the heavy, metallic odor infusing the air with its animal power. _I wonder if Inoue-san noticed. Then again, she must be used to me smelling like blood by now. Chances are she just figured it was a normal thing and didn't want to ask about it._

Slowly, Uryuu removes the clips from the ends of the bandages and starts to unwind them from his arm. They pool on the floor carelessly, him not noticing as they fall. The metal clips join the gauze a moment later, sliding from fingers and ringing hollowly as they hit the tile floor. Briefly, his mind strays to the thought that he needs to clean up the mess, but that impulse vanishes soon enough.

Instead, his eyes stray to the mirror, and, to his detriment, all thought of distractions and sanity-preserving devices fly out the window.

That face… That face, the one that Uryuu sees staring back at him in a panel of glass, isn't exactly one of a stranger. He recognizes the lines, the narrow jaw, the sharp nose, the dark blue eyes that, even to him, seem entirely too penetrating and frosty as a December morning. Superficially, Uryuu recognizes his face. However, the resemblance to the face he once knew is just that, superficial.

This is not the visage of a very nearly sixteen-year-old boy; this visage is not anything like that of a normal child. Oh yes, with the most cursory of observations, this face and the body worn by it is that of a child, but not to Uryuu. Not to Uryuu.

What he sees is old, heavy eyes and wan, worn skin drawn far too tightly across the bones. What Uryuu sees is the summation of years and years of lying to himself and others, of adoration turned to despair and to bitterness, of isolation so profound that just to talk to another human is a near-insurmountable challenge. This is where it's brought him, to loneliness by his own design and living out his days alone, and Uryuu wonders when his face became a mask like one a Hollow would wear, a pale, hard façade to hide what roils beneath.

And he has become like a Hollow in another way, just a small way, targeting those closest in their weakest areas, digging in teeth and claws made of bone with nothing resembling mercy.

Uryuu knows that Ryuuken was far from unaffected by the early death of his wife. He's had a lifetime's worth of cold glances and cold words, of watching him stare at that photograph for minutes on end, of having to pay in blood and tears for his resemblance to her to know just how _affected _Ryuuken was by losing his wife. Any inquiries into her death and his involvement in that no doubt gruesome affair would have to be like a stake in his heart, what's left of it anyways. Uryuu knew that.

The light overhead in its frosted cage is like the sun beating down on the back of Uryuu's neck. If anything, the entire room feels muggy and too warm for comfort. Fitting, all things considered.

He's thought about the ramifications and the implications of his actions since he put those searing words to the air, but the full weight of them only descends on his shoulders now. Self-examination has no pity whatsoever.

When it comes down the essentials, words are weapons far more dangerous than guns or knives or swords or arrows. Weapons held in the hand can hew flesh from bone and snuff out life, revealing it for the fragile candle that it is. Weapons held in the tongue can ignite wars, break minds, cleave the heart in two and drive the already-despairing to their death. Neither are anything to be trifled with, but his words are what Uryuu focuses on now.

Ryuuken was always the one who could harness words like bullets or silver arrows screaming in the night. Uryuu doesn't know where he learned the craft, only that his talent with it is unmatched. That's why no one who interacts with Ryuuken should ever let him see their vulnerable spots, because if they make him angry, those vulnerable spots will be the first target on his list. Uryuu learned that early on, but it did him no good; Ryuuken knows him all too well, and knows what spots he needs to needle to bring Uryuu to his knees.

It's supposed to be Ryuuken who is the aggressor in all of their little verbal wars, but tonight has changed the landscape, and tonight is the first night in which Uryuu questions the lengths he is willing to go to.

Uryuu never thought he would make use of words the way Ryuuken does. He never thought that he would go to those lengths to win a fight. He never thought that that he would use words like knives, that he would twist those knives inside the ribs of another human being, that he would bring up the name of somebody dead just to hurt someone alive.

He never thought that he would even try to manipulate someone's pain like that.

In the mirror, Uryuu can spy his lower lip twitching wildly. Come to mention it, there's a tightness in his throat and he can feel the muscles in his arms start to tense.

With heavy eyes, Uryuu studies the lines of his face, and all the while his mind continues to race. Ryuuken's skill at weaponizing words appears to have rubbed off on Uryuu, and it seems that Uryuu has the same capacity for cruelty in that area as he does. That must be the explanation. It's the only thing that makes sense.

_I don't want to be like him. I don't. _If those words were spoken they would lift in a scream; at any rate they threaten to break his teeth coming out of his mouth. The truth is damning, and Uryuu recognizes the face in the mirror. Blood roars in his ears; the fingernails of his left hand bite his palm. Those eyes are familiar, and—

There is blood now, running sluggishly down the slope of the sink, painting the shattered glass a brilliant shade of red. Uryuu breathes and realizes that his lungs are screaming for air; his eyes are burning and there is water summoned to put out the flames, but there isn't enough water to wash away all the blood; there's a howl pent up in his chest, but it can not find its way out of his mouth.

There is the glittering of glass all over the sink and floor, like snow or shimmering acid rain. There is blood dripping over the rim of the sink, forming a crimson pool on the floor that threatens to grow into a sea. There is the sticky, squelching sound of glass shards being pulled from their places embedded in fingers, the back and even the palm of his hand, and how they drop like lead into the trash can. There is heavy panting that eventually eases into a sigh, and the screech of a faucet as it turns on and summons rain, and the dull red currents that disappear beneath the drain at his feet.

For a moment, an absurd moment, Uryuu is struck with the want to say something, to justify himself to the air, his now-shattered mirror, and all the gaping cuts on his hand, opening and shutting their mouths like suckers. He opens his mouth, back hitting the wet wall, the water pelting his skin urging him to speak—

—And he says nothing. The words are stuck somewhere, in his mouth, his throat or his lungs, or maybe they were miscarried before they could even be born, never destined to be actualized in sound. There are no words, Uryuu realizes. After all, animals who trap themselves forfeit any right they have to words the moment they step into their cage.

There's nothing to do but watch his blood run away form him, and hold back the howling.


	169. 169: Blame

**Title**: Blame**  
>AN**: And here we have, basically, what Ryuuken was thinking after he told Uryuu to get out. In the next chapter, we have a counterattack.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>The sun sank completely beneath the horizon an hour ago, no longer willing to show its face. Ryuuken's just fine with that; he didn't particularly want to see the sun anymore either. The desk lamp provides more than enough illumination; a dim, golden sea stretches out about the close-knit carpeting. The book on his desk lies open and forgotten.<p>

He'd like to be able to think of something else. There's nothing Ryuuken would like more than to distract himself with a book (_he'd even tried, before realizing that though his eyes looked on the pages, he couldn't focus on any of the words_), or, at this point, even paperwork. Anything to occupy his mind and keep it from replaying the events of a few hours ago in his mind. Anything to avoid that.

Alas, Ryuuken isn't having any more luck blocking out his past tonight than he ever has before, and his mind is flooded with thoughts. The tides swell and ebb, he roots among the flotsam for anything of use as an anchor to reality, and all the while the thoughts pile up on the shore like mounds of trash carried in from further out.

_Those words… He had no right… What does Uryuu know about the circumstances of that day? Nothing. Nothing!_

He holds his glasses loosely in one hand and rubs his forehead with the other. The light of the desk lamp catches on the top of the picture frame too brightly, and Ryuuken puts his glasses down on the desk to turn the picture frame down, both so the light won't hurt his eyes any longer, and so he won't have to look at the picture within the frame. That's not going to help.

More spilled out today than Ryuuken has expected, or wanted. He has to struggle to compose his mind to think of Uryuu's attack, his response, the words exchanged between them, and the impact and the implication of them all.

There are, Ryuuken grudgingly supposes, disadvantages at times to the withholding of information. He couldn't really stop if he wanted to, and he tells himself that it's Uryuu's own fault if he isn't satisfied with the information he's been given. Still, maybe if he had fed the boy a little more information as a child, tonight wouldn't have happened. But…

But it has always hurt so much to talk about her, and, as much as Ryuuken sometimes wishes it would dull, maybe become a bit numb at the edges, and grow a little number over the years so there would finally be a point when he could talk about her without pain, it never has stopped hurting.

Isshin once accused him of being the sort of person who would cling to the most keenly hurtful of his losses for the rest of his days, just to have something to brood about when there was nothing to do. The way Isshin had said this was with a mixture of exasperation and an emotion that Ryuuken suspects that he may have deliberately refused to speculate on at the time, fear. Fear, genuine fear, out of someone like Kurosaki Isshin, nothing could be more out of place, and it needled Ryuuken in ways he didn't like to contemplate.

_Oh, why am I thinking about conversations that took place years ago? Isshin always blows things out of proportion. Why should then have been any different?_

Once again, Uryuu can truly claim to have surprised Ryuuken—_he seems to be getting better at that lately; I wonder if I should be disturbed. _This, he can not close his eyes against, not after tonight. Tonight was the night of truth and recrimination. He can't close his eyes against that.

"_You could have stopped it."_

If his glasses were still held in his hand, the frames and the stems would bend under the pressure of his clenched fist. _Don't you think I wish I had? Whatever else I think about that day, trust me Uryuu, I _do _wish I had been there. I do wish that things had been different._

Not a day goes by when Ryuuken wishes that that cold December day had gone differently, that Sayuri was still alive. However differently it might have gone, in whatever way, he wishes that her fight that day hadn't ended with her death. If Uryuu doesn't believe that…

There is close to nothing that he wouldn't give to have her back, to have known somehow what was going to happen ahead of time and intervene. Ryuuken can just picture Sayuri's reaction to his "intervention" as being less than positive—_"I'm handling myself just fine! Stop helping me!"_—but anything would have been worth not having to see a mangled corpse (_not that there was much of anything left below the neck_) laid out in the snow like a broken doll put up on display.

_I would give anything to hear her voice again. _It's been more than fourteen years since Sayuri died, too young (_They say that only the good die young_) to die so horribly, and though grief is no longer so overpowering as to be capable of keeping him from functioning as a human being, Ryuuken still feels it every waking moment of his life. Not a sharp ache; just a dull sort of numbness that only flees entirely in anger, usually in anger against Uryuu. Anger is pretty much the only thing that makes his heart pound like it used to be able to do, and tonight was no different.

Uryuu, however clumsily, is more than capable of needling to the most sensitive spots, it seems. The words might be blunt but the blade behind them is still felt, and Ryuuken is no fool. If the boy thinks he will ever be able to attain mastery in the sort of warfare that depends almost solely on a calculating tongue, he's wrong—_Entirely too soft-hearted for that_—but he does seem to grasp some basic understanding of what needs to be done in psychological warfare.

Uryuu may be in pain over having to grow up without his mother; Ryuuken can accept that, given that Uryuu has never been good at hiding pain, and that the agony bleeding in his voice had never been more obvious than it was earlier tonight. That doesn't change the fact that, if "the circumstances of her death" mean as much as Uryuu seems to think, Uryuu is completely ignorant of the circumstances of his mother's death, and his accusations, though still digging further beneath the skin than they ought to, are so completely off-base that Ryuuken had been too stunned by them to give a rebuttal.

Of all the questions he's been asked by multiple people, those impertinent inquiries that come when people who have no conception of tact when they discover that Ryuuken is a widower, he has never before had someone imply that he had let his wife die. The accusation stings and the want to defend himself against it is immediate, and Uryuu doesn't seem to understand how much those words rankle.

_I would have given anything to have been able to save her, and the fact that I couldn't… If you can't even realize that, after all this time… _Ryuuken grits his teeth as the pounding in his head grows stronger with every breath. _Are you really so ignorant, Uryuu, or so inobservant, that you can't even pick up on something I never attempted to hide?_

"_You blame me, then?"_

Contrary to what Uryuu may choose to delude himself with, Ryuuken has never blamed him for his mother's death. _Why should I? A year-old child can't stop someone from being brutally killed. There's no reasonable way he _could _be held accountable for Sayuri's death. It makes no sense to assign blame to him. The fact that Uryuu seems to think that I am so deranged that I would blame him for something that happened before he could even talk only reveals the depths of his own misconceptions._

Images come at the tail end of these thoughts, unbidden and unwelcome. The resemblance between mother and child was never anything short of uncanny, like Uryuu had stolen certain features from his mother's form and incorporated them as his own. He remembers the way eyes so painfully blue would look at him, and no matter whether they sparkled with happiness, glinted with anger or were dull with the weight of grief and melancholy, Ryuuken didn't want to see them. There was nothing Ryuuken wanted more than to make it so that he would never have to see those eyes again. _And yet I always insisted that he look me in the eyes when he speaks to me._

He remembers how, sometimes, when he was trapped, transfixed on the photograph that so often distracted him, he would become aware of an observer. Ryuuken would be at his desk, staring at the photo, and the door would create slightly open, letting a shaft of light shine in from the hall. Soon enough, something would block the light, and Uryuu was standing at the door, never speaking, those dark blue eyes tremulous, never having the courage to come closer. One sharp glare or withering glance was usually enough to send him running.

Uryuu always looked more like his mother than what was good for him. He still does, even as a boy just a few scant years from adulthood, with a narrow, tired face and a mouth that can never find sufficient motivation to smile. It's obvious to anyone who compares the two, and no one could be more keenly aware of the resemblance than Ryuuken himself. That resemblance has served both ill, and perhaps…

Ryuuken stops himself before he can finish the sentence. It's necessary to stop that train of thought before it can reach the station. There's nothing to be gained from dwelling on hollow realizations that no longer matter at all.

_Once again, Uryuu tries his hand at viciousness. _Shaking off what's left of his preoccupied thoughts, Ryuuken's lip curls as he becomes aware of the familiar emotion, the only thing capable of making him feel truly alive anymore. _He does not know the meaning of the word, nor the extent of true viciousness. He never has._

It's too late, he decides, entirely too late, for regrets.


	170. 170: Wounds

**Title**: Wounds**  
>AN**: And here is Ryuuken's "counterattack." Look out for the FMA reference (It's not strictly an FMA reference, but I suspect it's what most of you will ascribe it to). Also, this is sort of the expansion and revamping of a scene I wrote a long time ago in _Moments of Dysfunction_ and wanted to preserve.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>"I have a question for you, Uryuu."<p>

It may have been five minutes or five hours since they met tonight. The skies are dark with foreboding clouds, so the only "sunset" visible likely to be had tonight will be so bloody red as to nearly be brown. As it is, the shadows are as long and thick as they would be if it was a moonless midnight.

The only sounds to break the eerie silence are the words and the arrows exchanged between them. Even the light from those arrows can't totally banish the eeriness of the dusky shadows; if anything, the bolts of ghostly light only add to the unsettling atmosphere presented by the silver room.

_Let's see if he answers. _Ryuuken has reason to believe that he will. Uryuu came in today with fresh bandages over his right arm—properly tight this time, though just barely—and a swath of bandages on his left hand that Ryuuken can't place. He doesn't know how Uryuu managed to hurt himself, but can only assume that he was trying out his restored abilities on Hollows; that could certainly account for an injured hand.

Anyway, there's something distinctly frayed about the way Uryuu looked when he came in, head bowed, lips mashed together in a single, crooked line. No, it doesn't immediately show in his pale face, a struggle for neutrality as always. Where it shows instead is in his eyes and the way they wouldn't life from the floor, and in the way his fingers twitch as if overeager to begin the fight again. Ryuuken knows that Uryuu derives no pleasure from these little nightly sessions and is anything but eager to come. That tells him that, for whatever reason, Uryuu isn't far from cracking.

It could be for any reason. Maybe the long nights with less sleep than what Uryuu's used to are starting to take their toll. Ryuuken knows well the effect lessened amounts of sleep can have on the stability of the human mind, especially at Uryuu's age. After weeks of getting far less than the standard eight hours, maybe it's starting to tell on his emotional control.

Or maybe, maybe he's starting to regret the promise he made.

_I never said that he had to be happy with it; all I required was that he keep his word. _If Uryuu is at all familiar with the concept of "equivalent exchange", then it should make sense to him. He gave up his powers in order to help his friends, so he must give up his friends in order to regain his powers. It's very simple; Uryuu ought to understand.

And really, no one ever said Uryuu had to like it. Whether he's content with the decision or is on the verge of dying from the pain of it, it matters little to Ryuuken. He's beyond caring about how Uryuu responds to decisions that he made for himself. That Uryuu does seem to regret the terms to which he agreed means nothing to Ryuuken, beyond the grim thought that Uryuu had best keep his word.

_I care nothing if he regrets cutting them out of his life. There is no decision that is ever made without abandoning the alternative. So long as Uryuu keeps his word and no longer has any contact with them, I care about nothing else. _

Ryuuken considers the effects of isolation on the human psychology, how it can damage the mind, but he tells himself that Uryuu isn't isolated. He lives in an apartment complex with other people, goes to a school full of other students, and comes here six nights a week. Uryuu is far from being physically isolated. _There's nothing wrong. Nothing._

If the course of "conversation" flows the way Ryuuken wishes it, he should be able to accomplish a few things. First, Ryuuken will be able to tell if Uryuu has so far kept his word and has had nothing to do with his former associates. He should be able to gauge, whether directly or just from the inflections of Uryuu's voice, just how difficult it's been and how close he is to breaking down. And maybe he will, at last, be able to get Uryuu to see that, even if the way he was treated by those others was not the result of callous manipulation but simply careless disregard, Uryuu is better off alone. Maybe he'll be able to make Uryuu see that he's better off fighting by himself than fighting alongside people who don't even notice when he's helpless to properly defend himself.

There is silence punctuated only by footsteps, heavy breathing and arrows whistling through the air. Either Uryuu, hiding somewhere in the shadows, hasn't heard him, or he's reluctant to take the bait. After last night he may well be fearing a response to the verbal attack he leveled at Ryuuken, and doesn't want to open himself up to that sort of attack.

Uryuu has good reason to worry.

"Your hearing seems to have failed you." _That should get his attention. _"Allow me to repeat myself. I have a question for you, if you'll hear it."

Ryuuken knows well that Uryuu is by nature too curious of a person to resist the bait forever. Eventually, he will answer, and sure enough, he does, after a few blue arrows sear the air like flame. "And what, pray tell, is that?"

The sardonic note in Uryuu's voice is abrasive enough to make Ryuuken's lip curl, but he reins in his tongue enough to keep from giving an acerbic retort. Losing patience with Uryuu will derail the whole thing. "I was just thinking about something. It's fairly important, considering the circumstances—at least _I _think it is." Seeing something in the darkness move, Ryuuken fires into the shadows, but it seems it was just his eyes playing tricks. "I wanted to know what you could tell me."

There's a moment of silence in which Ryuuken can just see Uryuu licking his lips as he sometimes does when he's nervous, or unsure of the situation he has walked into. Then, his voice comes, and it's much closer than Ryuuken had expected, urging him to whip around, anticipating the sight of a human form. There's nothing there.

"What are you talking about?" Uryuu asks uncertainly, the inflections clearly indicating that Uryuu thinks he might be better off not knowing.

Ryuuken smirks triumphantly, shooting in the direction of Uryuu's voice. There's the sound of something crashing, a thud on the ground. Ryuuken can't see light falling, but the properties of this room just seem to soak up the light cast by a spiritual bow. "I thought this should interest you too; after all, it's extremely relevant to the way your life has been lately, and I thought that you would—"

"Get to the point," Uryuu snaps. An incandescent blue arrow strikes the ground two feet from where Ryuuken stands; it would have struck him, had he not seen it coming. "It's not like you to ramble."

Another smirk, far nastier this time, twists Ryuuken's thin lips. His voice is uncharacteristically mild, something that must raise the hairs on the back of Uryuu's neck. "You're correct; I digress. I was just wondering, though… You do keep your promises, don't you, Uryuu?"

Another long pause settles between Ryuuken's question and Uryuu's response. The boy seems content to let fly streams of light that put themselves out on the floor, never giving an answer to Ryuuken's inquiry._ How long will this go on, before he finds the nerve to answer?_

The silence eventually becomes long enough that Ryuuken decides that he's going to have to ask again. _I won't let him wriggle his way out of this one. _"I said—"

"I try to," Uryuu answers at last, cutting him off. His voice is kept carefully neutral.

"You 'try to'?" Ryuuken snorts condescendingly. "Uryuu, there is a large disparity between _trying _to keep your word and actually _managing_ to keep it. If you are known not to be a man of your word, no one will wish to associate with you, for they know that your word is worthless. In such matters as these, you'll do better to take a less indecisive stance. I ask again. Do you, or do you not, keep the promises you make?" Ryuuken asks deliberately, placing hard emphasis on every word.

Uryuu seems to need time to consider it. When he does speak, his words are every bit as deliberate as Ryuuken's, but careful as well. "I do keep my promises," Uryuu responds quietly, but not so quiet as for his voice to be lost in the shadows.

Wind batters on the window, but both ignore it. "Ah, good. A straight answer, at last. And tell me, Uryuu, how is keeping your promises working for you?"

"I fail to see how that's any of your business," Uryuu retorts brashly, opening a barrage on the spot where Ryuuken three seconds ago stood. "You've never displayed much of an interest in my private life."

"_Answer the question, Uryuu_."

Since childhood, Uryuu has heeded that tone of voice, if not out of respect at least out of fear. That's the tone of voice that heralds punishment or at least stern admonishment if orders are not followed—actually a voice Uryuu heard quite often, but has never lost its sting—and Ryuuken knows that Uryuu will respond to it eventually, one way or another. He always has before, and Ryuuken knows Uryuu too well to think that he might have grown so far away from being the little boy who wilted whenever he looked at him that he no longer responds to "that tone of voice."

Sure enough, Uryuu doesn't take long to prove him correct, though he certainly sounds as though he _thinks _he ought to be able to resist the all-too-familiar tone of voice Ryuuken levels at him. "I manage," Uryuu supplies tersely.

_He… 'manages.' Well, that tells me just about everything I need to know in order to go ahead. _Uryuu may not know it, but with just two words and the inflection that accompanies them, he has betrayed himself completely. From this, Ryuuken knows that, though Uryuu may have so far kept his word, he unambiguously _doesn't _like it. The correct phrase would be "struggling with it internally", clearly having a hard time living with the terms he agreed to. Knowing that Uryuu walked into this with his eyes open, Ryuuken is without pity.

A few steps forward are taken, trying to discern Uryuu's location in the assembling shadows all around. "But you aren't very happy with it, are you, Uryuu?"

Ryuuken doubts that Uryuu will give him any answer to this—he doesn't—and frankly, he wasn't expecting one. It's just a needling comment, meant to dig beneath the boy's all-too-thin skin. If he was to get a response, that would certainly be an excellent gauge of what Uryuu's emotional state is at this stage, but Ryuuken is just as well off without one.

There's still no sign of Uryuu anywhere in the cavernous, shadow-filled chamber, and wherever he's chosen to hide, it must be a good hiding spot, Ryuuken concedes. As the architect and the builder, he will always have a better understanding of the room than Uryuu, but Uryuu has been coming here for a few weeks now, enough time to catalogue the layout of the room in his mind, and it is quite dark. Everything looks different in the dark.

"You're better off by yourself," Ryuuken proclaims to his silent audience, firing once into the dark to illuminate the area. A shadow that's not a shadow slips away from the area. _There he is. How will you respond to _this, _I wonder?_

This is apparently an incendiary enough statement that Uryuu feels compelled to respond, punctuated by arrows, even. "I can't agree." The sharp edge of anger makes his words shudder slightly; Ryuuken can't help but notice that Uryuu's arrows aren't as close to hitting the mark as they were before.

_No, I didn't suppose you would. You never agree to anything proposed by me, do you, Uryuu? Instead, no matter how sensible the proposition might seem, you disagree and take the exact opposite path on principle. _"Perhaps. I tell you, though, that if you intend on being anything resembling a true Quincy, solitude is the only path you can take that will not result in you being taken advantage of, purposely or not."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Uryuu demands irritably.

Thunder blares outside, but neither pay it any heed. A momentary crash of lightning puts the whole room in stark illumination. Their eyes lock from across the room for a single moment, and Ryuuken can see the anger, the uncertainty, and the hints of visceral pain splattered across Uryuu's face like belligerent, garish war paint. His face is exposed and almost obscenely naked, but at the same time these emotions provide a mask all their own, shielding something more vulnerable still from sight.

"If…" Granted asylum again by darkness, Uryuu, with a considerably softer voice, hesitates, preoccupied by the way to couch his words. "If you never have any allies in any of the fights you wage, there won't be anyone to watch your back, and there won't be anyone around to help you if you are so badly wounded in battle as to no longer be capable of leaving the battlefield under your own power."

"And how well did that work for you?"

Either Uryuu is so enraged by that question, that one, simple question, that he does not trust himself to speak, or it is so piercing an inquiry that he is simply lost for words, unable to give a bitter retort. Ryuuken does not care either way. "I will admit that I am curious as to the circumstances under which you removed the Sanrei Glove. However, I'm sure you're not going to tell me—always keeping secrets, aren't you, Uryuu?—so I must infer the reason."

A headache starts to pound at this admission, sprouting up out of nowhere like mushrooms spawned by the rain, and Ryuuken feels his own temper start to fray at the edges as he remembers yet again. _Fool. Such a fool. _As for the headaches, Ryuuken supposes he can attribute that to the fact that he forgot to take his cigarettes with him to work this morning. The normally iron control he exerts over his temper frays fairly soon without the feel of smoke and nicotine, thought it always takes him time to realize the fraying for himself.

"These people you set so much store by—"

"Don't." Uryuu's voice is taut as violin strings ready to snap from the tightness. "Don't."

"—did they notice that you came back from the realm of the dead diminished?" Ryuuken goes on as though Uryuu never spoke, though his lip curls in a soundless snarl. "Did they care that you had rendered yourself powerless fighting their fight? Did they notice?"

Uryuu never answers, a response that normally by its very nature would promote ambiguity, but Ryuuken takes the answer he had already believed from the silence he is provided with. "I see. You seem to care a great deal for these people, especially if you are willing to go to the Soul Society, the Shinigami's main base, a place where you are more in danger than possibly anywhere else, to aid one of them. And yet they don't notice when your powers are lost, and you have not seen fit to tell them."

There could be any number of reasons why Uryuu chose not to tell them that he was now powerless, and Ryuuken does not discount that his son, a prideful person under any circumstances, may have concealed the loss of his abilities so well that his friends never noticed the difference. Still, if there was a bond of real trust between them, Uryuu would have felt comfortable telling them, and if they took an active interest in his life, they would have noticed without Uryuu ever having to say anything.

"Is there a reason, do you think, that your friends never noticed anything wrong with you? As a matter of fact, Uryuu, is there a reason you never saw fit to tell them that you had lost your powers and could no longer fight?" Ryuuken fires a single arrow into the shadows, just trying to provide some light between the fall of lightning. It shoots like a flare before fizzling out in the dark.

_Will he see reason, or am I just going to have to spell it out for him. _"And once you were back in the living plane, powerless and helpless to properly defend yourself, even if they did know, they made no attempt to secure your safety, or help you try to find a way to regain your powers." Uryuu still doesn't answer and Ryuuken snarls. "An odd definition of friendship, to be sure," he snaps bitterly.

Uryuu is behaving out of character today, for he doesn't respond even to this, at least not with words. Oh yes, the arrows come, but they are fewer too, and stop far longer than they usually do. It's too early for him to be tired, so Ryuuken can only assume that he is getting somewhere. "You say you keep your promises, or that you 'try'—" Ryuuken spits the word "—to. I have to wonder, though: how hard exactly have your friends made it for you to keep your promise?

"Have they tried to find out why you haven't spoken to them for weeks?" If there is curiosity in his voice, that curiosity is entirely genuine; Ryuuken really does want to know if Uryuu has been approached by the ones he forswore all contact with. _Whether he gives me any response or not, I'll know soon enough. _"Come to mention it—" the incisive edge is unmistakable now "—have they even noticed at all, that you no longer speak to them?

"Perhaps, now that you are no longer a part of their lives, they have simply forgotten you, and to them, it's as though you never existed." Ryuuken feels the phantom sensation of bile in his throat, but he goes on anyways. "Perhaps that's it.

"Are you really so terrified of being alone, Uryuu, that you would latch on so firmly to such people, even when they seem not to care nearly as much for you as you do for them?"

This time, the silence, though Ryuuken has grown long-since used to it, is absolutely resounding. He starts to walk about the room again, looking for Uryuu, more so he can finally force an answer out of him than so he can try to shoot him. There are splatters of rain against the window, making the light ripple on the walls when it appears, and no sign of Uryuu.

Finally, Ryuuken finds him, in an out-of-the-way spot near the window, standing silent, back against the wall. Uryuu has let his spiritual bow dissipate, and he seems totally unaware of Ryuuken's approach. _Pay attention to your surroundings_, he thinks irritably, and if it wasn't for the fact that Uryuu has let the spiritual bow dissipate, he would start to shoot just to get his attention.

As Ryuuken gets closer, he stops, and frowns. Uryuu has his right hand up over the according side of his face, sending his glasses slightly askew. Ryuuken has to squint to notice it, but there are tears leaking out of his visible eye, sliding silently down his pale, hollow cheeks. The boy's slightly quivering lips are smashed together to keep sound from escaping, his visible eye is open wide, and his bandaged left hand hangs limp at his side. The look on his face is one part agony, one part frustration, one part helplessness and one part hopelessness. He seems to have abandoned any pretense of stoicism.

Ryuuken can only look at him for a moment more before he has to turn his eyes away. The resemblances here are too overwhelming to be ignored, and they burn like nothing else can. "Go home," he says roughly. "Be back here on Monday."

Uryuu hears, and asks, in an undertone with a raw, sticky voice, "What time?" Those blue eyes, bloodshot and red-rimmed, are so intensely focused on his face as to burn holes into Ryuuken's skin. He behaves as though he hasn't been crying, swallowing hard, though he makes no attempt to hide the glittering tear tracks on his cheeks.

"The same time as always," Ryuuken snaps, snarling and wishing he hadn't forgotten his cigarettes so he could have something to calm him, and wishing that Uryuu would just stop looking at him. "Now go."

He has all the answer he needs.


	171. 171: Cigarettes

**Title**: Cigarettes**  
>AN**: Not much to say. Hope you all enjoy.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>It's hard to say who's more surprised when Uryuu actually shows up again on Monday night: Ryuuken, or Uryuu himself. Though Ryuuken's reaction would have been anything but positive had he chosen not to attend, Uryuu is sure that he's surprised to see him come back. The slight flicker in those otherwise dull, marble-like eyes proves it.<p>

Personally, Uryuu is surprised at himself as well. He had spent all of Sunday telling himself over and over again that he would not go, that he would not go back, that Ryuuken could burn in Hell for all he cared, because he _would not _go back.

_It's not like Ryuuken told him anything new. It's not like he told him anything he hadn't already suspected for himself. All of the things he said the night before have already crossed Uryuu's mind at one point or another. The words ought not to have affected him the way that they did; after all, Uryuu had already entertained them for weeks._

_Instead, sitting at his table and staring at but not really seeing the books laid out there, Uryuu remembers how he had let the words completely bowl him over. He remembers the thick, messy tears that made his throat raw and sore when he swallowed them. There was a sick, roaring sensation in his chest cavity, caged up in his ribs and raging so hard against the bars that Uryuu thought for sure that they would break. It had been the first time he had openly cried in years, and despite his audience and the sort of reaction he was sure he would get, Uryuu made no attempt to hide it._

_With self-examination, Uryuu thinks he knows why he reacted so. No, the words were not new. No, it wasn't anything Uryuu hadn't suspected himself. But whether all of these suspicions are true or simply habitual paranoia, hearing someone else say it aloud made them all too real._

And here Uryuu is, back again, despite his better instincts. _I must be out of my mind. _If he's back, he supposes he came again out of a feeling of obligation, that since he had agreed to Ryuuken's "training", he has no choice but to come, even if he doesn't like it.

Deep down, he supposes that for Ryuuken, that could have been revenge for Friday night. Uryuu is willing to admit that he had sank pretty far down into the mire with those knife-like words. What Ryuuken countered with could very well have been punishment in his mind. _It does seem like the sort of thing he'd consider rightful punishment._

Following that line of logic, Uryuu shudders to think of what he might be subjected to _today_, if Ryuuken has not yet overcome his anger. But he's brought something with him today, something that he hopes will help; if it doesn't, well, Uryuu won't stay any longer, then.

"You're late," Ryuuken calls flatly from across the room, and Uryuu winces despite himself. He is, indeed, ten minutes late, and Ryuuken's mouth forms a sour line halfway between a scowl and a dark frown. Plainly, he's in just as much of a bad moon now as he was on Saturday. _I hope this works._

The scratches on Uryuu's hand, now so superficial that there is no need for bandages, itch as he digs his hand into his jacket pocket. "Here," he mutters irritably. "Just take it."

What he has pulled out of his pocket and thrust in Ryuuken's direction is a pack of Camel cigarettes, and Uryuu gets a small moment to feel sullenly satisfied when his silver eyebrows shoot up in astonishment. Ryuuken ought to be surprised, all things considered.

Uryuu is fairly certain that Ryuuken hasn't been smoking as much lately, and less certain, though entertaining the suspicion, that he might have even gone so far as to try to quit. Whether or not this is true, Uryuu hasn't been able to pick up on the acrid stench of cigarette smoke on Ryuuken's clothes for a few days now, which means at the very least he's been forgetting to bring his cigarettes with him to work.

_Look, if you want to quit, that's great, but could you please wait until _after _you've deemed my abilities "satisfactory" to do so?_

(Beneath this layer of excuses, Uryuu suspects that just making sure Ryuuken has his nicotine fix isn't going to make things a whole lot better for him during these "training sessions." There's no shame, however, in taking steps to at least _try _to make things better for himself. It can't hurt. _Unless it does, in which case, I am in a lot of trouble_.)

When astonishment passes, Ryuuken snatches the cigarette pack out of his hand, opening it and inspecting to make sure they're all there. _Trust me when I say that I have absolutely no interest in smoking your disgusting, lung-ravaging cigarettes._ "Where did you—"

"I've known where you keep the cigarettes since the age of nine," Uryuu answers shortly. "It wasn't difficult."

"Lighter?" Ryuuken asks briskly, in such a way that it's clear that he expects Uryuu to have forgotten it.

If Ryuuken was waiting to have a chance to chide Uryuu on having forgotten the most important device needed to be able to smoke a cigarette, he's out of luck. From the same pocket, Uryuu draws a plain black lighter and hands it out. "It's here too," he says simply. Uryuu's eyes narrow as he remembers his search for the lighter.

-0-0-0-

_Uryuu never envisioned himself returning to this house, and even as he stands in the open doorway, backed by the gray, chilly sky behind him, he hesitates. Eventually, though, Uryuu forces himself to go inside—what he's looking for here, he's not going to be able to buy at a store._

_Looking around the living room, it could very well be as though Uryuu never left at all. Nothing has been moved; nothing has changed. It's the same furniture with the same upholstery, the same mini blinds coated with a fine layer of dust, the same carpeting. From his position, Uryuu sees that the kitchen looks exactly the same as well, down to the position of the drying rack and the table mats that almost never saw any usage by more than one person at once._

_This place hasn't changed at all. Still cold—_I think it might actually be warmer outside than it is in here_—still silent, the walls still all too close. It's like entering a space trapped in one moment in time, doomed to live out that moment, unaltered, unchanged, for all of eternity. This place with its still air and cold silences is the definition of stagnancy._

_It was never really home to Uryuu, but now, now that he has been away for years, entering again feels to him like breaking and entering into a house not his own. Just coming here again feels like a criminal act, when the house is no longer the place where he sleeps at night and he comes here while the owner is away. He feels like just being here is enough to damn his soul to torment._

I just want to come here to get what I was looking for, and leave.

_Uryuu makes a beeline for the bathroom. _Let's see; does he still keep them where he did when I was still lived here? _Opening the cabinet under the sink, Uryuu can see that Ryuuken's habits have not changed at all. _Here we go. _He pulls out the plastic-wrapped package of multiple little boxes of Camel cigarettes, and withdraws one before putting the package back._

Now for the lighter. _Uryuu bites his lip as he stands. He doesn't know where Ryuuken keeps his lighter. _I suppose I could try to buy one from a convenience store, but do they let people under the age of twenty buy lighters? I'll have to go looking for it. Maybe he keeps it in his desk.

_As quiet as one would be when treading the grounds of a cemetery, Uryuu slips out of the bathroom. For a moment, his eyes light on the shut door of what used to be his bedroom—the only sanctuary he had in the whole world, at one point—and Uryuu swallows. He doesn't open the door. Maybe Ryuuken's gotten rid of everything or maybe he hasn't touched the room at all since Uryuu left; it doesn't make a difference. Uryuu doesn't think he could quite take what he saw either way._

_The office has not changed, either. Uryuu thinks Ryuuken might have come into possession of a few more books in the past couple of years—_Most of them are probably updated editions of books he already had_—but otherwise, the room is unchanged. There's still that big, rather unsightly window that Uryuu doubts Ryuuken had anything to do with; he's too coldly practical to have really wanted a window that could provide such a hazard during foul weather._

Maybe he keeps his lighter in one of the drawers. _Uryuu starts opening drawers and rooting through them, pointedly keeping from looking at anything that does not resemble a lighter. He may have to root through Ryuuken's things to find his lighter, but that doesn't mean that he has to read potentially delicate documents as well._

"_Here it is," he mutters to himself, finally finding it in the top drawer on the right hand side, next to the tape dispenser. Uryuu pockets the lighter, closes the drawer, and starts to leave, before something catches his eye._

_There's a picture frame still on Ryuuken's desk, with a picture inside._

_Uryuu won't deny that he was surprised when, all those years ago, he received a manila package only to discover that there was the much-cherished photograph of his mother inside. Given the amount of time Ryuuken would spend staring at it when Uryuu was a child, he supposes that the man must have placed some value into it._

_Well, he's replaced it with another._

_The picture frame is the same color as it always has been, a dark wood. Either it's one of those that can be turned on its side, or Ryuuken's bought another one that holds landscape-style photos instead of portrait-style ones._

_What's contained within is a photograph the same size as the other one, probably having been taken within a few years of the one sitting in Uryuu's apartment now. Uryuu lifts the picture frame into his hands, and stares._

_A young woman bearing what might possibly be a smile on her small, pale face, stares down at the newborn baby held in her thin arms. Her short, dark hair, barely coming past her chin, half-shields her face, but Uryuu can see it all too clearly. The newborn looks up at his mother with what can only be described as an expression of infant adoration._

I… I've never seen this before. _There's a lump in Uryuu's throat, hard and leaden and so big that he can barely breathe. His eyes prickle and sting, there's a wretched tightening in his chest and his heart feels like it's about to crack like an egg and shrivel like an old, worn-out sponge. Just as two nights before, there comes the overwhelming urge to—_

"_No," he mutters, forcing himself to breathe and blinking hard to rid himself of the burning sensation in his eyes. Uryuu puts the picture frame back on the desk, and leaves._

-0-0-0-

Ryuuken ignites his lighter and puts it to the end of his cigarette, before drawing a deep breath off of the smoke; the tension visibly goes out of his shoulders. Uryuu coughs, eyes watering, and backs away a couple of paces. _He might just be calmer now, but the smoke still reeks as much as it ever has. How can he stand it?_

A few moments of silence pass between them, in which Ryuuken is content to smoke his cigarette and Uryuu is content to let him, the former thanking God that he has _finally _gotten his nicotine fix and the latter praying that he'll be a little calmer tonight than he has been.

Eventually, though, Uryuu, hesitant though he may be to address it, becomes so overwhelmed by curiosity that there's something he has to say.

_He doesn't expect his old key to be able to open the door anymore (Frankly, Uryuu's not entirely sure why he kept the thing at all, but that's an issue for another day). Ryuuken got the locks changed once a year, without fail. He should have changed the lock by now so that Uryuu's key won't get him inside at all._

_Instead, his face slackens a little to realize that, in actuality, the lock is the same as the one that was there when he left the house, so long ago._

"You… haven't changed the locks." In that statement, there's a question hidden, though Uryuu is half-praying that Ryuuken won't notice it to answer.

Ryuuken sniffs disdainfully, tipping the ash from the end of his cigarette into the ashtray he carries around with him everywhere (While he may have forgotten his cigarettes and lighter, it seems that he has remembered to bring an ash tray). Uryuu nearly rolls his eyes at the sight of it; _You know you're a chain smoker when…_

"Why would I do a thing like that?" Ryuuken asks calmly. He looks up at Uryuu over the thin, undulating trails of blue-gray smoke that curl away like floating snakes, eyes penetrating. "You haven't gotten rid of your key."

Uryuu looks away. "Why _wouldn't _I do a thing like that?" he murmurs, staring holes into the floor.

Something else in the way of words rises up in his throat then, refusing to remain to go unsaid. "Just for the record…" Uryuu wavers for a moment, wondering if this isn't just going to open him back up to attack, before deciding to say it anyway. _I don't care if he knows. _"Just for the record," he says softly, "one of them has tried to speak to me."

"Just one?" Ryuuken inquires, all too calmly. The implication hidden there is obvious.

"It's enough," Uryuu responds, still speaking softly, but more firmly this time, and staring Ryuuken square in the eye the way he's usually unable to without having to be prompted first.

Uryuu believes every word of what he has to say, and as he does so, Ryuuken is forced to see in Uryuu's eyes what he never deigned to notice before. One can only hope he considers it an educational experience.


	172. 172: Necessity

**Title**: Necessity**  
>AN**: For those of you who were hoping to see more introspection on Uryuu's decision to go after Orihime, you'll get it in a few chapters. For right now, I think the sense of urgency to get going is too strong for a great deal of contemplation to really fit.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>Urahara's words are sickening and instantly alarming, and Uryuu isn't sure what it says about him that he does not for so much as a moment consider that Urahara might be lying. All Uryuu heeds is the impulse to go, regardless of his sore ribs or the promise he made. On the latter score, he mentally thanks Urahara for providing a plausible loophole for him to use. At least this way, he won't have to go after Orihime completely by himself.<p>

"You're ready to go, then?" Urahara keeps his flimsy paper fan up over his mouth, but Uryuu recognizes the tone of voice well enough to guess that he wears a lazy, not entirely truthful smile behind the mask of paper. He, for one, certainly seems ready to leave.

Uryuu almost says 'yes' without thinking. This isn't something that can wait, after all. Uryuu's sense of urgency says _"Leave now, and go save her_" without ever giving any real thought to the consequences of leaving without thinking. Thankfully, Uryuu's mind doesn't claim to be ruled by the impulses of his heart, and he does think before saying 'yes.'

_The armory._

"There's, umm…" _Come on. He never uses any of it; he won't care. _"…there's somewhere I need to go first, _without _being spotted." There's no way for Uryuu to get to the armory without stepping out of the door and having Ryuuken see him; on the other hand, since Urahara seems perfectly capable of going through the walls, if Uryuu can enlist his aid, there shouldn't be any problem. "It's over there." Uryuu points in the direction he needs to go.

Once they're in the armory, Uryuu frowns, and looks around for the light switch. He's only been in here once before, and Ryuuken didn't seem too keen on him spending much time in here. _Come on, where's the light switch? _When Uryuu finally finds the light switch and turns on the single, naked bulb in the ceiling, he looks around.

It's not really what anyone would call an "armory"; Ryuuken preferred to refer to it as a "storage room." It's a small, cramped room, with shelves pressed up against two of its four walls. On these shelves, there are several cardboard boxes, though Ryuuken allowed Uryuu to see the contents of one. It's that box that Uryuu goes towards now.

"If you don't mind me asking, Urahara-san, how did you know this was here?" Uryuu asks curiously as he pulls the box down from the shelf and puts it down on the floor. It is a matter of genuine curiosity to Uryuu. After all, though Uryuu doesn't know the sort of relationship Urahara has with Ryuuken, he does get the impression that Urahara is a bit wary of him, and Ryuuken probably wouldn't go telling everyone that he has this sort of thing hidden away in the basement. _How did he find out?_

Urahara stands straight and tall, wearing a smile that would make a used cars salesman jealous. "My dear boy, don't you know that I know _everything_?"

Personally, Uryuu can't help but find that thought to be more than a little disturbing, all things considered. _I'll admit, that on the list of people I would rather were not omniscient, Urahara-san isn't the very worst. Still, the thought of him being all-knowing is a rather scary concept. _"Ah… Okay. Well," Uryuu mutters, putting his hands on top of the box, "I won't waste much time here. I'm amazed he hasn't already picked up on your being here."

"No need to worry about that," Urahara reassures him. "Soul-synthesized silver of this quality acts as what could best be described as a one-way mirror. Up until the moment he comes back inside and finds you gone, Mister Ishida will never notice anything out of place. Oh, and once this is all over, if you're still alive, could you please give your father my compliments on his craftsmanship? I've never seen construction with soul-synthesized silver on this scale before."

Uryuu nods, but at the same time decides that he probably won't be telling Ryuuken about Urahara's compliment; he's pretty sure the Shinigami was being facetious anyways (_He doesn't really seem the type to compliment others genuinely_), and that Ryuuken probably wouldn't appreciate the compliment anyways.

At the same time, Uryuu decides not to speak to Urahara anymore until he's gotten what he came for. He is more than a little curious as to why Urahara seemed so relieved that Ryuuken wasn't in the room when he came to tell Uryuu what happened to Orihime, but Uryuu is a bit tired of feeling ignorant and inadequate. He's none too keen on giving Urahara the chance, once again, to remind Uryuu of just how little he knows about his own race and their craft.

Instead, Uryuu refocuses his attention on the brown cardboard box, and lifts the lid off of it.

About two weeks ago, Ryuuken gave Uryuu a brief tutorial on a weapon known as Seele Schneider, what it was, how to use it, what could be done with it, and so on.

(_"So it's like a lightsaber, then?"_

"No_, it is _not _like a lightsaber. Pay attention, Uryuu."_)

That was all Ryuuken had done, however, refusing to give a demonstration or have Uryuu train with one of them. _"You'd never be using one of these things against a Hollow,_" he had muttered, putting the lid back over the box and the box back on the shelf. Uryuu had watched in silence, burning with curiosity that he knew would not be sated. _"Not if you valued your life."_

"Oh, so you're taking some of _those _with you, then?"

Uryuu nearly jumps out of his skin when that voice comes from directly above him. Urahara is leaning over the box too, wearing an intensely interested expression on his pallid, stubbly face. Uryuu pulls towards the box defensively, and the line of Urahara's lips quirk from an inquisitive smile—_I've a hard time trusting people who always smile_—to a rueful one. "I'm not going to steal any of them. While your father might choose not to take action against you as a thief, trust me when I say that I doubt he would extend me the same mercy. I don't particularly like picking fights if I don't have to, Ishida-san, especially not considering the current situation.

"I must admit, though, going with these weapons? Quite a curious choice, especially considering the circumstances of their creation." Pale gray eyes flash and Uryuu doesn't miss the implication. He looks away, staring moodily down at the floor.

_By "curious choice", he means my choice to take weapons that bear the appearance of a sword when activated. And by "circumstances of their creation", well I can easily hazard a guess._

Ryuuken revealing the Sanrei Glove's intended usage has put doubt into Uryuu's mind about everything else. _If the Glove was meant to be a suicide weapon, then what was ginto created for? What about hirenkyaku, and Ransoutengai, and all of the other advanced techniques? Were they created just so we could combat the Shinigami? _Naturally, his doubts extend to Seele Schneider as well.

It's patently impractical for a Quincy, a being who, at the end of the day, is still painfully fragile whether they're more durable than normal humans or not, to be fighting Hollows with a sword. For a Quincy, what Uryuu understands, what he _knows_, is that if a Hollow gets close enough to you that a sword can reach it, you're pretty much screwed. You can kiss your life goodbye. No Quincy would have used Seele Schneider against Hollows, so it must have been utilized in battle against Shinigami, when they would get so close to them that firing arrows wasn't really an option anymore.

Uryuu remembers his history very well. _They say necessity is the mother of invention, and wars have given rise to some of our most useful inventions. _No one in the living plane ever immediately condemned useful inventions just because their creation was linked to war. If they had, Uryuu knows that medical science would not have progressed nearly as much as it has since the second World War.

When Ryuuken first told him that the Sanrei Glove was created to be a wartime suicide weapon, Uryuu had believed that the usage of a weapon would never be able to overcome its history. He had believed that a weapon created for a despairing reason would never be able to be used for anything but a despairing purpose. He had thought that a weapon's meaning could only be changed if you knew what that meaning was, and that even then, it was likely pointless. Uryuu learns now to revise his opinions.

_It doesn't matter as much as I thought it did. A weapon's purpose depends on the user. _If Uryuu wants to take some of the copies of Seele Schneider out of Ryuuken's armory and use them in the attempt to bring Orihime home, then it doesn't matter why they were created. It only matters how he uses them.

Setting his jaw grimly, Uryuu takes up a handful of the copies of Seele Schneider out of the box, before replacing the box on the shelf. Urahara may be dubious about this weapon, but Uryuu doesn't need to prove himself to Urahara or anyone else. He won't let anyone guilt him into not capitalizing on a reasonable advantage. _Maybe I'll change the meaning, while I'm at it._

"I think I'm done here," Uryuu announces quietly, holding the pilfered items in his hands.

"Ah, good. Is there anywhere _else _you need to be going, Ishida-san?"

Uryuu hesitates for a moment, before nodding. "My apartment. I need to change my clothes."

For a moment, Urahara looks like he would like to do nothing better than laugh, before motioning for Uryuu to follow him.


	173. 173: Empty

**Title**: Empty**  
>AN**: Hello again.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>While Uryuu is running off with the Shinigami whom Ryuuken likes least of all in the whole wide world, Ryuuken is out in the hallway, leaning against the doorway and smoking slowly away on a cigarette, completely ignorant of what goes on behind the walls. It's probably for the better that he doesn't know at this point.<p>

Uryuu has fallen under the assumption that Ryuuken is smoking less than usual, that he might even be trying to quit. While with what little information he has—the fact that, for a few days, Ryuuken did not smell of smoke, and showed the levels of irritability that would come from and accompany nicotine withdrawal—that might not have been an unreasonable assumption to make, it is ultimately incorrect.

If anything, Ryuuken has been smoking more heavily since the night when he used his abilities against a foe for the first time in years. The urge to light up in order to banish the headache and soothe the ragged edge of his temper has been constantly rising, just as he's sure that this much smoking has been making his blood pressure skyrocket. If Uryuu thought that he had been smoking less often than usual lately, well that was simply because Ryuuken really has been forgetting to bring his cigarettes to work with him.

_There are cycles, I suppose. _Ryuuken grimaces, before blowing a long trail of smoke out of his mouth. He smokes more heavily or less so based on his stress levels. When Uryuu was out of the picture, his smoking actually decreased a bit; there was no one to get into near-constant arguments with. Now that the boy is back, though, and the old pattern has been re-established, it feels as though there is a headache waiting in the wings at every moment. _It can't be helped. Nothing else does the trick. I can't drink—I could get a call at any time; I simply can't afford to show up to work drunk—and smoking doesn't make one lose control of one's faculties._

_He seemed as grateful for the respite as I was._ Though Ryuuken is sure Uryuu didn't want him to see, he would have had to be blind not to notice the flash of relief in the boy's blue eyes when Ryuuken announced that he was going to go out and smoke. He hadn't given an amount of time, because ten-minute cigarette breaks invariably expand into hour-long cigarette breaks.

Ryuuken will take the time to calm down, and Uryuu can do the same and catch his breath so that he'll be ready when the break's over. There's no danger in laving Uryuu alone, unsupervised, while he does so. _It's not like he could do any real damage, _Ryuuken thinks with a snort, _and it's not like he could run out without me noticing. The door is the only way out, and I'm leaning on it._

Though his overall skill remains sub par, Ryuuken grudgingly admits that, however slowly, however painstakingly, Uryuu is improving. His grasp of hirenkyaku has improved enough that he's no longer likely to hurt himself in the application of it. Though Uryuu will likely never be so comfortable with the five-pronged bow as he would be with the standard (on this score, at least, Ryuuken can't blame him; he wouldn't choose to hunt Hollows with the five-pronged bow, not if he had a choice), his skill with it is passable, even if nowhere near perfect.

_He still has a long way to go. It's only been a month, after all. When are the Shinigami going to get this "war" of theirs over with?_

After learning what he had from Urahara about the renegade Shinigami and the artificially enhanced Hollows known as Arrancar, Ryuuken had went to Isshin to see if he could confirm or deny what Urahara had said. Isshin confirmed Urahara's story, and Ryuuken has not heard from either of them since. Ryuuken can only assume that they are each readying for the conflict in their own ways, and the silence doesn't bother him quite so much as it could; if something had gone urgently wrong, Ryuuken suspects he would have heard about it by now.

Ryuuken still has absolutely no intention of getting involved. There are, of course, the reasons he gave to himself when he first learned of the conflict brewing on the other side of the veil. It's not his fight (_let the dead take care of the dead_) and no Quincy has ever benefited for inserting themselves into the affairs of the Shinigami. For this reason, Ryuuken will do all he can to keep Uryuu out of the thick of things as well. His word out to be enough to bind him, but Ryuuken knows Uryuu to be just the sort of person likely to end up dead in this scenario.

There is another reason as well.

If things do not go well for the forces of the Soul Society, Ryuuken can guess that the living world will not emerge from the conflict unscathed. Wars have casualties, wars have collateral damage, and the living world will be what's caught in the middle. It may just be pessimistic cynicism talking, but from what he has seen of them (admittedly not the broadest frame of reference), the average Shinigami seems to care little for the living. They are far too absorbed in their internal conflicts to pay a great deal of attention to the state of the living. In that case, it will simply fall to someone else to look after the living, and Ryuuken supposes it may as well be him.

_No one else seems to be giving much thought to the living. I may as well be the one who does._

Another stream of pale smoke coils out into the air. Ryuuken stares ruefully at the cigarette when he realizes that he's been puffing away so intently that there's nearly nothing left. Rather than tapping the ash on to the floor (Ryuuken never has been fond of that; he considers it to be shamelessly untidy), he draws his portable ash tray from his pocket and puts the cigarette out in that.

He's been out here long enough; Ryuuken has no idea how much time has been lost. He can only put off another night of training for so long.

_I must keep Uryuu out of the Shinigami's fight. I do not care how he feels about my interference; this is not his fight, not his war. If he wishes to get himself killed fighting Hollows, that's his prerogative, but I will not have him killed in an outside war. The Shinigami already did this to us once._

Sighing, Ryuuken pushes open the door to the chamber, only to find it empty.


	174. 174: Note

**Title**: Note**  
>AN**: Originally, this chapter was in fact two chapters. I condensed it to one, seeing as it really just didn't make any sense to have them split up.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>It just figures that barely three minutes after Ryuuken put out his last cigarette, he'd need to light up <em>again<em> to blot out yet another burgeoning headache. This is just the way his life works; out with one stressor, in with another.

Funny how all of these stressors seem to be connected to Uryuu.

Ryuuken doesn't know where he's gone and won't, _can't _read the note the boy left behind. The little folded slip of paper is crushed in his free hand before stuffed unceremoniously in a pocket; nowhere near "Out of sight, out of mind", but trying desperately to give the appearance of it.

The door is the only way out, and Ryuuken would have seen Uryuu leaving. How he left, Ryuuken has no idea, but he knows that Uryuu has to have had help. Furthermore, he's gone somewhere. Ryuuken knows he has to have gone somewhere other than home. If Uryuu had wanted only to go home, he would not have left in the middle of a training session; he would have simply refused to attend tonight.

_But gone where? The note he left probably holds some clue, but not enough to discern the truth. And I…_

He can't bring himself to look at the note. All Ryuuken can think is that Uryuu has gone somewhere, somewhere far away, somewhere where Ryuuken may not be able to reach him. _Likely he'll be back within a week, bruised, abashed, refusing to admit that it was wrong to simply disappear. There's nothing to worry about._

"So, just checking, that note's from Uryuu, isn't it?"

Oh, and Isshin hasn't left yet. There's that, too.

Ryuuken doesn't respond to him, still puffing away on his cigarette. From where he's sitting on the ledge above him, Isshin can't see his face, and probably assumes that Ryuuken didn't hear. More insistently, he asks again. "That note from your emotionally scared little head case?" After a moment more of silence, Isshin elaborates, starting to sound uncertain, "You know, your son? Because I've met Uryuu and he _is_ a head case."

_And how well do you know him, to make that assumption? _Ryuuken draws the cigarette from his mouth long enough to respond. "Who else do you possibly think it _could _be from?" he asks irritably, immediately taking a drag again after speaking.

"Well, you never know." Isshin's voice is irritatingly nonchalant. "I was just curious. And hey, you should be happy. At least your kid _bothered _to leave a note. Ichigo didn't even do that much. Or maybe he has, and I haven't found it yet," he muses. "I should look when I get home. Then again, he hasn't really gotten wise to the fact that I know what he's been doing yet, so he probably expects me to mistake Kon for him, and I shouldn't be looking for a note at all. What do you think?"

Once again, Ryuuken doesn't answer him. Instead, he's thinking about Uryuu going off to strange and dangerous places again and of the fact that Isshin always has had a hard time knowing when to _shut up_, and that this much, at least, never seems to change. Isshin still talks too much—_or maybe it's just the headache talking, the anger at Uryuu for leaving and the wondering, the wondering…_

Undeterred, Isshin goes on, no doubt sporting a whimsical little smile to coat his lips. "Maybe I'll get Urahara in here. He'd probably have something interesting to contribute to this conversation, unlike _some _people, who shall remain nameless." He takes a moment to drink in the sheer scale of the chamber. "And you know, I think you might have outdone Urahara with this place. The secret lair in _your _basement's even bigger than his! We really gotta get him in here to compare!"

_That… is never going to happen. Not while I still breathe and call the living plane home. _"This leads me back to my original question. How did you get in here in the first place?"

For a long moment, there is silence, and Ryuuken can just imagine a big, evil grin unfurling across Isshin's face. _He has always been so fervently in love with "dramatic pauses." Such an irritating habit. _"Secret Shinigami keys."

"_Isshin._"

"Oh, so you calling me "Kurosaki" like you used to was just you being weird, then?"

"Yes, yes," Ryuuken snaps, too impatient tonight to argue out specifics with Isshin. _It was just a slip; I don't see why you have to make it so much more significant than it is. _"If you want to put it like that, then yes. But answer the question, Isshin. Do that much, at least."

"Fine." A swish of the air indicates Isshin waving an arm through the air lazily. "If you really want to know, fine. I came through the wall."

_But soul-synthesized silver doesn't allow for phasing. _"You shouldn't have been able to—"

"Urahara told me how."

_Typical. _"Ah."

Admittedly, Ryuuken is somewhat glad that Isshin apparently has his powers back, for Isshin's sake if no one else's. Even if the Shinigami would never admit it to anyone, Ryuuken can guess how the long years of being nothing more than a spiritually sensitive human have been insanely frustrating for him. _I wonder if he still wishes if he could have saved Masaki…_

In a single, surprisingly fluid movement, Isshin has his feet on the ground, standing on the wall beside Ryuuken and frowning slightly. Ryuuken doesn't like that frown for the penetrating quality of it. "Don't you want to know where he's gone?"

Ryuuken will never admit that he was caught off guard by that one, especially since he really shouldn't have been. "Does it matter?" he asks quietly, finally finding the heart to let his irritation ease away. Personally, he's not sure he wants to know this time.

Isshin's frown deepens. "It does matter."

"Are you going to continue pestering me about it until I give in?"

"Probably."

A weary sigh hits the air. _I still say I'm better off not knowing. _"Alright, then."

The fact that Isshin's "storyteller" face doesn't make an appearance this time tells Ryuuken that either he's taking his son's running off more seriously nowadays, or the situation is something entirely different from what happened over the summer. "One of their friends has been kidnapped again—"

"The same one?"

"No, not the same one; the other girl in the group, this time."

"Inoue Orihime, then? The one with really long hair?"

"Yes, her." With a gleam in his eyes that indicates he's getting tired of being interrupted, Isshin continues on. "Anyway, she's been kidnapped and whisked off to Hueco Mundo."

_Hueco Mundo. _Suddenly, Ryuuken has a pounding headache regardless of his constantly smoking. On that note, he notices he's worn down his cigarette again, so he puts it out and lights another one. _He's gone to Hueco Mundo. That pit of vipers._

Ryuuken first heard of Hueco Mundo from Urahara, when he was a child. Given the context of the discussion, Ryuuken still has the distinct impression that Urahara was trying to overawe with the idea of there being a world occupied only by Hollows. As it stands, the idea had been to him so preposterous that he hadn't believed him, until Soken had quietly confirmed Urahara's story. Ryuuken had felt forced to reevaluate his opinion then; his father may have been many things, but Ryuuken knows that Soken wouldn't have lied just to frighten him.

_A world of Hollows. That's where he's going. Is he suicidal? Is he?_

"Her kidnapper managed to arrange it in such a way as to make it seem as though Orihime went willingly." Isshin snorts. "I think everyone, even the old man, knows that there's no way she _really _went willingly, but since we've got no way of proving that, she's being treated as a defector until we can prove otherwise."

From going with what he knows, Ryuuken can agree with Isshin on the "_no way she _really _went willingly_" part. _The girl's kidnapper would have had to have been one of the rogue Shinigami or a sapient Hollow, or an Arrancar. She was probably threatened with death if she _didn't _go. If she was kidnapped, there must be a reason. There must be something about her abilities that makes her valuable to the enemy, but I doubt any reasonable person would count on that to save them._

"So, since the main bulk of the Shinigami are having nothing to do with this, it's just my kid, yours, and one of their friends going after her."

Ryuuken says nothing to this for a long while, breathing in smoke in a now quite vain attempt to ward off a migraine.

Uryuu has broken the terms of their agreement. _I made it very clear: he was to have no further contact with the Shinigami or their associates. I fail to see what was at all ambiguous about those terms. I suppose he can't be trusted to keep promises, after all._

Furthermore, he's broken the terms he agreed to in order to try to rescue a girl who may have gone willingly to a place where he could so easily be killed. _Hueco Mundo. I almost wish he was breaking into the Soul Society again. There's a less likely chance of death there, and considering what the Soul Society is like, that's saying something._

It's no small thing for a Quincy to break their word, especially not for a Quincy like Uryuu. Ryuuken has to wonder what the exact nature of Uryuu's attachment to this girl is if he's willing to break his word and risk death to ensure her safety.

To his mind, when someone willingly goes to a place that can be best described as second only to Hell in terms of horror to rescue another, the rescuer's feelings towards the one they seek to rescue can only be one of two things: either very strong friendships, or a romantic attachment. In Ryuuken's mind, either one would be problematic, but the idea of it being the latter in Uryuu's case leaves him restraining the urge to groan. There's little he wants to deal with less than teenagers and their crushes. _Please don't tell me he's fallen to that particular adolescent affliction._

_I do wonder what it is about Uryuu that leads him to always running to save a girl who's been kidnapped, even if he doesn't know her very well or she's been spirited away to a close imitation of Hell. When Uryuu gets back I'm going to have to make sure he knows what century he's living in. Chivalry died because it could no longer apply itself to the times._

"So… I guess you aren't even contemplating going after him, are you?" Once again, Isshin has found a way to insert himself into Ryuuken's thoughts. He has his arms crossed over his chest, head tilted to one side. His frown is now more a thing of genuine curiosity.

A pale cloud of smoke trails out lazily into the air. "Why should I? Uryuu's choices are his own to make, however likely they are to lead to his death. It's up to Uryuu if he live or dies. I've made that clear already."

_Just like it was up to him to keep his word or break it. If Uryuu gets himself killed in the Hollow's den, then that's his own choice. I give no assistance and care nothing. He breaks his word, his oath, to rush towards death, for a girl. Why should I give concern to one so foolish?_

The cigarette has burned down again. Ryuuken puts it out and pulls out yet another. "He's always running," he mutters through the smoke, eyes glazed over like old glass. "Uryuu runs from everything, whether literally or figuratively. It's the only way he seems capable of handling his problems. You don't run after people when they do that, Isshin."

_It's easy to break your word when faced with a crisis. It is easy, and proves weakness. It's harder to choose to keep your word when faced with a crisis. I don't know how Uryuu has chosen to justify this choice to himself, but no matter what he says to soothe his troubled conscience he has gone against his word. This is weakness, no matter how he chooses to term it._

Shifting from his curious expression, a troubled look comes over Isshin's face. "You know… Sometimes, when people run, they're running because, yeah, they just want to get away from what they're running from." Ryuuken starts to get the distinct impression that Isshin, now uncharacteristically hesitant, _isn't _talking about Uryuu having run off to Hueco Mundo, and he sets his jaw. "And sometimes, when they run, they're running because they want to see if you care enough to follow them."

Ryuuken's response is immediate. "You got that from a television show," he says flatly, not looking at Isshin, letting his bangs shield his face.

"No I did not!" Isshin protests.

"Yes, you did. I remember; you made me sit through a marathon of _that _too. It was years ago, but I remember. And as for that little speech of yours, if you think I should be trying to drag Uryuu back here, why aren't _you _going after _your _son?" _Please let that be enough to change the subject. And for a matter of fact, why are you telling me how _I _should behave when your plan for your son is to have him go up against your main adversary in the "hope" that he'll win?_

Isshin glowers at him. "Hey, I've got things I've gotta do here too. You think I'm just going to sit out on the sidelines when the fighting starts?"

No, Ryuuken doesn't expect Isshin to just "sit out." He knows Isshin too well, knows that Isshin is idealistic enough that even if this is the first time in over twenty years that he has been anything more than a Shinigami in name only, he'll involve himself in the conflict plaguing the organization he abandoned at the drop of a hat. Isshin has always been fond of a good fight, likes to think that he's "fighting the good fight", and even if he didn't do so as often as Ryuuken thought a Shinigami should, Isshin is a rarity among the Shinigami as someone who joined the organization _because _he wanted to purify Hollows.

That doesn't mean that he won't put fighting beings other than Hollows over the whole point of being a Shinigami. Again, Ryuuken knows Isshin too well, and he supposes that, for once, it can be excused. _Well, if you want to fight, I wish you well. But for myself, this is a clash between the dead; I have no place in it._

"And I guess you won't be joining us?" Once more, Isshin's voice intrudes on Ryuuken's thoughts.

One looks at his face tells Ryuuken that Isshin already knows what the answer to that question will be, and he curls his lip accordingly. "Don't ask questions you already know the answer to," he murmurs tiredly, though not without a hint of the acerbic.

To his credit, Isshin doesn't look at all surprised with Ryuuken's assertion that no, he will not be taking part in the Shinigami's fight. "I didn't think so, just had to ask. You've never been much of a "fighter", have you, Ryuuken? Course, you're definitely not a "lover" either, but that's not really…" He trails off, staring off into the distance, and Ryuuken is glad for his silence.

That is, until Isshin starts to talk again.

"Okay." Ryuuken can't remember the last time he saw Isshin looking at him so seriously. "Your staying out of it is actually kind of convenient for me, because I wanted to ask you something. I'm probably going to be pretty busy trying not to get killed for a while, starting very soon, so I can't really make sure Karin and Yuzu are safe."

Recognizing what Isshin wants him to do, Ryuuken frowns. "Surely you've already made arrangements for that?" Yes, he can understand Isshin's fear that, if he fights, his two young daughters might be made collateral damage. Even if either one of them have a decent level of reiatsu (and Ryuuken only got that sort of impression from Karin; Yuzu may not be spiritually sensitive at all), they would have no chance of defending themselves against either Hollows or rogue Shinigami. But surely, _surely _Isshin hasn't waited this long to try to find someone who would be able to protect them?

Isshin shrugs. "Yeah, there's someone. He's a decent fighter when he's being serious, I'll give him that, but he won't kill. From what I can tell, he absolutely will not kill, and the people he would face if someone came after the girls don't adhere to that philosophy. If I want someone standing between my daughters and someone bent on killing them…" Isshin sucks in a deep breath, eyes unnaturally bright. _Oh God, don't go getting emotional on me. _"Bottom line is, I know you don't have the same moral hang-ups about killing someone who attacks you that Kon does. So will you do it, or not?"

_It's not so much of an inconvenience. I would fight if it came to self-defense, and anyone looking to attack Karin and Yuzu would certainly try to kill me. _"I don't see why not," Ryuuken remarks calmly. His eyes follow blue gray smoke trails that flutter away like little ghostly birds.

So intense is Isshin's relief that Ryuuken can practically taste it on his tongue. "Thanks, man."

Ryuuken just shakes his head, not quite willing to acknowledge Isshin's gratitude.

There are no more words exchanged.

Ryuuken doesn't ask if Isshin, Urahara and the Shinigami as a whole have changed their plan for Isshin's son. Personally, Ryuuken can't help but have some misgivings about the fact that everyone is placing all of their hopes on the shoulders of a fifteen-year-old boy, but at the same time, he's not sure he even wants to know if the game plan still consists mainly of Ichigo fighting Aizen and hoping that his apparently massive reiatsu levels and having not borne witness to Aizen's shikai will be enough to stop him. _I wonder if any of these people even remember that he's still a child. _Isshin is probably grateful that Ryuuken doesn't ask.

Isshin doesn't ask Ryuuken about Uryuu, if he's still insisting that it's up to Uryuu if he lives or dies and that Ryuuken doesn't care either way. Ryuuken is certainly grateful that Isshin doesn't ask.

After a pointed glance out of the window, Isshin leaves without saying goodbye, walking out in uncharacteristic silence. No ceremony, no melodrama, he just leaves, his shadow stretching out far behind him, so distorted that it can barely be recognized to belong to a humanoid shape.

For what seems an eternity after Isshin leaves, Ryuuken draws long drags off his cigarette, staring abstractedly, eyes glazed. He can't really think much, not with the weight of a simple slip of paper in his pocket growing heavy as lead, and an absence that has never been so noticeable as it is now.

Eventually, Ryuuken leaves too, just as silent, and the only trace left behind is the smell of smoke still lingering in the air.


	175. 175: Garganta

**Title**: Garganta**  
>AN**: Please understand that since I've only ever read the manga, I take my descriptions of the Garganta from what I saw of it in the manga.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>There's something about the Garganta that just rubs Uryuu the wrong way. It's like the precipice world, but far more intense and not nearly so easy to ignore. Maybe it's something about the fact that everything seems to bleed darkness, or the sensations that there is something monstrously vast just out of sight, waiting for him to slow down so he can be devoured and lost beyond recall. For that reason, Uryuu takes a fresh scan of his surroundings from time to time, and tries to tell himself that he's just being paranoid. That's not working very well, but he keeps it up anyway.<p>

It's quiet now. No one's having issues with their footing anymore and it's going to be a while before they get where they're going. Ichigo and Sado have both fallen silent, and frankly, Uryuu is glad of that. No questions, no accusations, just silence. It gives him time to think.

Back in the world of the living, He had run off with no thought given at all to the consequences of leaving. Uryuu's only thoughts were for Orihime, spirited away to some forbidding world, and that no matter what his obligations were, he had go find her to help her. _I've always resented accusations of mulishness, but it's amazing even to me how much of a one-track mind I have sometimes. It was all I could think about—how are you _supposed _to respond to the news that one of your friends has been kidnapped—but now what?_

In his mind, Uryuu supposes that Aizen could want Orihime for her powers. Someone who can heal the way she can would be a valuable asset to any side of a war. _When did this become a war? I should have asked Urahara-san. _If that's the case, Orihime's captors will certainly keep her alive and in relative comfort. A valuable prisoner of war, not to be mistreated but rather held in reserve, made to treat the wounded of a side not her own. _Still…_

While they were waiting for Ichigo to show up, Urahara gave Uryuu a basic rundown of what he's missed over the last month. The war brewing between the forces of the rogue Shinigami and Seireitei, the modified Hollows known as Arrancar, things like that. Even if they are more intelligent and more human-like than the average Hollow, the image of Orihime as the lone human in a sea of Arrancar is troubling to Uryuu on so many levels.

_I don't care if they are supposedly modified and evolved. A Hollow is a Hollow. They are creatures of ravenous hunger; a Hollow's first instinct is to devour whatever is smaller than itself. Inoue-san's powers and how valuable they are to the rogue Shinigami may protect her for now, but they won't forever. The moment she stops being useful, her life is forfeit, and the only thing standing between Inoue-san and death will be whatever shield she can produce._

_This never should have happened. Why didn't anyone realize how much of a target she was? _Uryuu wonders furiously, tugging at his collar and gritting his teeth. He doesn't dare make eye contact with either of his fellow travelers. _And if they did know, why didn't they take steps to make sure this sort of thing wouldn't happen to her? _He bites his lip. _Why didn't I—_

No. It's too late for accusations, too late to be assigning blame. Whoever is at fault here, if anyone, it does not matter anymore. What matters is that Orihime is found, brought home, and that she not be put in such a situation again. All that matters to Uryuu is that she is kept safe.

_I hope she's still alright._

Thoughts shift to other things and Uryuu can almost quirk a wry smile before it goes bitter and sour in his mouth. _This isn't how I envisioned my reunion with them would go._

Truth be told, Uryuu hasn't devoted a great deal of thought to a reunion with his friends at all. All the times in which he thought of them over the past month were thoughts given to loneliness, bitterness, regret and despair. The words Ryuuken bound him to seemed to Uryuu ironclad, no way out at all. He thought about how he had thrown them away too readily, and how he was never going to be able to speak to them again.

Now, he's more than a little uncertain. A month is a long time, and Uryuu has always wondered… _I can't show any weakness. I have to keep up with them. Even if I get hurt, I have to keep up with them. _Something occurs to him. _Blast, I forgot my medication when I got the painkillers and the blood coagulants out of my medicine cabinet. I hope this doesn't take more than a couple of days; I'll be in a world of trouble if I have to go without my medication for much longer than that. But I can't let them see that. I can't._

Now, Uryuu still feels a bit guilty. Even if he's here now, going after Orihime, it doesn't change the reality that a month ago, he gave them up. Nothing can ever take back that betrayal, nor erase the stain from Uryuu's conscience. But for one, shining moment, he feels freer than he has in a month, lighter than he has in a month, like he's finally back on the right track.

That feeling evaporates soon enough.

Easily recalled is the sick feeling that gripped his stomach when Sado asked about the deal Uryuu struck with Ryuuken. _Why did Urahara-san have to tell him? _Uryuu couldn't look either Sado or Ichigo in the eye as he reluctantly explained; he didn't want to see the anger or the accusations he was afraid would be there. _I didn't want them to know. I didn't want them to find out. I didn't want them to know what I would give up for power. _Whatever respect either of the two had for Uryuu, he can just picture it ebbing away.

And Ichigo was right about Uryuu's logic. _As much as I hate to admit it, Kurosaki's right. It really is such a lousy excuse._

Uryuu grimaces when he remembers the note, hastily scrawled, unsigned, that he left on one of the lower ledges for Ryuuken to find. _'Have to help a friend. Don't know when I'll be back.' _He's sure he doesn't want to imagine what Ryuuken's reaction was to reading what he had to say.

Ryuuken knows that the only friends Uryuu has are either Shinigami or associates of theirs; he _has _to know that. Whatever information Uryuu has chosen to use as a loophole, he's sure Ryuuken won't see it the same way. Ryuuken will see it as Uryuu breaking his word and going against his direct orders. _And he would be right_, a small voice pipes up.

The dark world of the Garganta continues to zoom by, and Uryuu still gets the feeling of being watched by something vast. His skin prickles and his pulse quickens, but he does not dare take his focus off of the application of hirenkyaku; if he loses his concentration, he's afraid he's going to get lost. Any slight noise leaves him ready to jump, taut and tense as a skittish alley cat, and the only reason he doesn't is because he doesn't want to open himself up to Ichigo's taunting.

_It wouldn't be the first time I disobeyed orders. He didn't want me going to see Grandfather for training either._

When he was a child, Uryuu would go to see his grandfather after school despite Ryuuken telling him in no uncertain terms not to. If Uryuu thinks about it, this situation isn't so different. He disobeys orders to do something he knows is right; there is guilt, because he wants to please, but still tells himself that this is the right thing to do.

There's a difference this time, though, and that difference makes all the world. As a five-year-old boy told not to go see his grandfather, Uryuu was not given a chance to back away. It was either obedience or the icy chill of Ryuuken's displeasure. Though he was afraid of incurring Ryuuken's anger, the fact that Uryuu had two alternatives—Ryuuken, whom he could never discern any real sign of love from, and his grandfather, whom Uryuu could at least be confident of—that were so black and white, made it so much easier. It was never much of a contest. This time, though, there was a choice. Uryuu could have backed away from the edge, but he had his eyes open the whole time, and he made his choice.

_My honor… It's not a small thing. I used to think that I was someone who would stand by my word. That was all the comfort I had. If nothing else, I could say that I stood by my word. I could say that, no matter how much it hurt, I kept my promises. Even if it meant cutting off all contact with almost everyone I cared about. Now what? I didn't keep my word. What's it worth now?_

Just as leaving Rukia to her fate was never an option, leaving Orihime all alone on Hueco Mundo is not an option. Uryuu always would have gone after her, promise or no promise. Even if he had to do it alone. The thought of leaving her, the sweet girl who was always kind even to those who didn't deserve it, the girl who had once offered him bandages despite barely knowing him, alone, forever, is abhorrent.

_I would never just stand by and do nothing while Inoue-san was in trouble. I wouldn't stand by while any of them were in trouble. But he can't be happy. What's going to happen when I go back?_

Uryuu doesn't want to have to face Ryuuken's disapproval, his anger, his cold words _again_. He's sick of never being good enough, of never being able to do right in his eyes, of always falling short of the man's exacting standards. That doesn't mean he doesn't get a distinct cold spot in his stomach at the thought of the way Ryuuken has reacted to his leaving, to his breaking the promise he gave.

Uryuu doesn't know exactly the sort of danger he will face in Hueco Mundo. He knows there will be Hollows, that there will be Arrancar, that there will be rogue Shinigami, and maybe more than that. Even if he has to go there to get Orihime back, he does not like the thoughts that come to mind when he envisions Hueco Mundo.

On the same note, right now, considering what's waiting for him, Uryuu's liking the prospect of going home even less.


	176. 176: Vitamins

**Title**: Vitamins**  
>AN**: The chapters may start to get shorter again like they were in the beginning. They'll be as long as they need to be, and no longer.  
><strong>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>When Ryuuken had agreed to look after the Kurosaki twins until things were quiet again and the world was no longer in imminent danger of some indeterminate source of peril (Ryuuken isn't entirely sure of the exact source of danger that would be wrought by Aizen's winning this wretched little war, but he's sure it would have something to do with Hollows overrunning the Earth, unchecked), he hadn't thought about the fact that they were going to have to stay under his roof. In retrospect, he supposes he probably should have considered that. <em>Oh well.<em>

_The two young girls, both gripping duffel bags, stare blankly at Ryuuken, and though he knows it makes him look like an idiot, he can't help but do the same for the first few moments, wondering how on Earth he should go about this. It's been a while since he last had a child in his house; he's _never _had two before._

_Eventually, it occurs to Ryuuken that Karin and Yuzu are going to need somewhere to sleep for as long as they're here. There's no way either one of them are sleeping in Uryuu's old room, for a host of reasons, not least of which is that the twin bed found there isn't wide enough for both of them to sleep on._

"_The couch pulls out," he mutters, suddenly glad that there are a few extra sets of sheets in the linens closet. "You'll sleep there. Just put your things down for now."_

_This they do, still plainly awkward with this whole situation. Yuzu sits down on the couch and pulls out what appears to be homework, reading pages out of a textbook._

_Karin, on the other hand, does not sit. Instead, she, straight-backed and stiff, looks Ryuuken in the eye frankly. "Do you know what our dad's going to be busy with? He wouldn't say when we asked."_

_The effect this question has on the two sisters is immediate. There is something tense and strained in the barely perceptible stretches of Karin's face. Though she doesn't look up, Yuzu's eyes stop moving over the open page of her book as she bites her lip._

_For himself, Ryuuken does not skip a beat. "No, I don't. I doubt it's anything important," he lies._

Ryuuken envies neither Karin nor Yuzu the situation that they find themselves in. Isshin couldn't afford to be honest with his daughters in his explanation of why they had to go live with a near-stranger for an indeterminate amount of time. What explanation he did give was probably vague enough that speculation runs rampant and worry is spawned from the fire.

However, by Ryuuken's estimation Karin has it far worse than her sister. If Yuzu gets the sense of something being wrong, then it is her intuition that tells her so. Karin has something more concrete to go on. The girl is unmistakably spiritually sensitive—Ryuuken couldn't miss the signs if he tried—and she may have even picked up on some of the disturbances that have almost become commonplace in the past month. Ignorance is bliss, and Karin can not claim to it.

_She'll just have to live with it for now; they both will. If Isshin hasn't chosen to tell his daughters what's going on, then it's not my place to do so. Perhaps when this is over he will be honest with them—their brother, too. Perhaps _all_ of the Kurosaki family secrets will come out into the open. Until that day, things will have to continue on as they are._

_Now where is that aspirin?_

The steady pounding of a headache, like drums steadily beaten upon, has been growing louder for some time. Rooting through his medicine cabinet, through the myriad pill bottles, half of whom likely need to be thrown out, Ryuuken doesn't like to think of why the pounding has started up the old refrain again.

_He makes his own choices._

Eventually, Ryuuken stumbles upon something that makes him pause, but it's not his painkillers.

Long fingers curl around a small, white bottle with a pale, powder blue label pasted on the front, taking the bottle from its place in the cabinet. Ryuuken stares down at it, silent, his headache momentarily forgotten in place of a blank, vague emptiness.

Though Ryuuken sent on Uryuu's iron supplements to the boy when he left, he did not do the same with his vitamins. Ryuuken has long since suspected that Uryuu wasn't taking them like he was supposed to, since the bottle never got any lighter or any emptier as time went on. If that was the case, then Ryuuken didn't need to send them on. Or maybe he just forgot. That could have been it.

Something hot and leaden slides sickeningly down his stomach as he looks at the bottle. Ryuuken never goes in Uryuu's room, never even going so far as to open the door, but here is hard, undeniable proof that Uryuu used to live here. There's no door to shut this up behind.

It takes a moment, a long moment of stomach-knotted hesitation, but eventually, Ryuuken throws the rattling bottle away, and resumes his hunt for the elusive aspirin. _It's long since expired, anyway._


	177. 177: Suspicion

**Title**: Suspicion**  
>AN**: And now for something completely different: a chapter from, of all people, Karin's perspective.  
><strong>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>"I looked in the fridge and the cupboards," Yuzu says as she sits back down on the couch. Her brow is furrowed, worry growing increasingly heavy on her soft face. "There's barely anything at all. I don't know what we're going to do for food. I don't know what <em>he <em>does for food."

"We'll just have to go and buy something later," Karin replies reasonably. _Trust Yuzu to worry about where we'll get the materials of our next meal, _she thinks, fondly and exasperatedly. "You've still got that money Dad gave you for groceries, right?" _I guess he knew about Ishida-san's near-empty larders, _Karin muses, rolling her eyes.

Karin watches Yuzu visibly relax, though the currents of worry still rush behind her brown eyes, and Karin, knowing where it comes from, feels guilty for her moment of exasperation with her sister. _Come on; she's in this just as bad as you are. _"Yeah, I do. Will you ask Ishida-san if we can go buy groceries?" she asks sweetly.

And just like that, the guilt is gone. "You ask him," Karin mutters mutinously, scowling and fixing her eyes on the plain, pale carpet.

"_Please?_"

That imploring tone of voice is one Karin knows all too well, and she honestly doesn't know why she would be so stupid to look at Yuzu once that voice is on the table, but Karin does anyway, and regrets it instantly. _The eyes, the eyes… God, not the eyes! How can anything be so grotesque and so cute at the same time? _Yuzu, though she is sweet and kind and helpful, definitely knows how to get what she wants.

"Fine," Karin concedes begrudgingly. "You win. I'll ask him in a little while; just lemme think right now."

Satisfied with this, Yuzu goes back to doing her homework, though she doesn't speed through it the way she usually does and seems to have trouble concentrating on the task at hand.

Mind flooded with painful, jumbled thoughts, Karin can't blame her.

Ichigo's gone; he's run off without explaining anything to Karin or anyone else. _I thought if I told him I knew about what he was doing, he'd actually bother to tell me what's going on this time. I'm such a twit; I should have known better. _Ichigo's gone, and Karin has no idea where he's gone, when he'll back, or if he'll even be back at all. She's got a bad feeling about where all of this is going. Karin can't place that bad feeling, can't really give a point positive assertion of what's causing it, but she knows that something's going on. Just out of sight, something's going on, like the leviathan hiding in the shadows. Everyone's been acting too weirdly lately for this to be routine stuff. And now Dad's gone, too.

Dad's gone too. Isshin's left to do God knows what, the same as Ichigo. _Maybe it's the same thing, and they're in cahoots or something. Wouldn't mind being clued in, guys. _Karin's lips twitches sardonically. _Course it could be some weird male-bonding thing. Dad and Ichigo don't usually do that stuff, but maybe this would be the first time._

_I don't think that's it, though._

Of course, Yuzu is worried too. Yuzu developed the strange, ill-defined thing known as "women's intuition" a little earlier than the norm; she knows when something's not right just as much as Karin. Their sense of something being wrong comes from a different source, however, and sometimes, Karin wishes she was like Yuzu. She wishes, even more than usual, that she was like Yuzu, who can't see ghosts, because when you can see ghosts you get this sense of something being off about situations, even if there's nothing to give such a feeling. If Karin couldn't see ghosts like Yuzu, then she wouldn't have any sense of anything being seriously wrong, because, unlike Yuzu, Karin doesn't have "women's intuition." Maybe she wouldn't be as worried as she is now.

_Come on. Try to think of something else. I'm too young to be getting ulcers over when my dad and older brother drop off the face of the Earth without giving a whole lot of notice; it would be _completely_ unreasonable to be getting ulcers over something like that. Just try to think of something else._

This house is absolutely unnatural.

_That's what I choose to think about? _Karin resists the urge to curl her lip. _That sure isn't going to make me feel any better. _It's true, though, and once her mind starts on that subject, it can't stop until it exhausts itself.

The house that Karin finds herself in with her sister is as different from their home as anything could be. It seems barely lived in, a point that could have already been proven by Yuzu's appraisal of the state of the fridge and the cupboards, but Karin takes from how abnormally clean it is. Not a spot, not a stain, not a hair out of place anywhere. This is not to Karin's eyes a house that people live in, but when she thinks about it, it goes rather well with the austere, even sterile personality of its owner.

_Doesn't he have a kid? _Karin's pretty sure that one of Ichigo's friends is Ryuuken's son. They have the same last name (granted, Ishida isn't exactly an uncommon surname), both wear glasses, kind of look alike (if you squint), and she gets the same strange reading from looking at the pair of them. If so, where is he?

This house is unnervingly impersonal; it doesn't seem like one that's raised a child, or still houses one today. There are no pictures anywhere, nor are there the scuff marks or small indentations on the walls that would give evidence of a child once having played here. The walls are all stark white and utterly spotless, and everything is put away in its proper place. The very fibers of the house reek of silence, and it's so insanely cold. _Has that thermostat even been set above freezing?_

Karin has two opinions of this house. First, is that it is total anathema to the place that she calls home. Her home is not silent, nor spotless, nor barely lived in. There's always someone shouting at someone else, over any topic in the world. There are stacks of magazine and newspapers, homework and textbooks strewn everywhere. There are dents in the wall from where Isshin's tried to kick Ichigo in the head but his foot connected with plaster instead. True, the clinic is neat, clean and spotless, but that's because Isshin, though he may be a bit of an idiot, takes his job seriously. Her house actually has the aura of a home.

Her second opinion of this house is that, thousands of years from now when kids go to "Twenty-First Century" museums, this is what the model of a twenty-first century home will look like. Clean, contrived, silent. Neat, impersonal, monochromatic, and unnerving by virtue of its sheer artificiality. _This is what they'll think a real house looked like. How wrong they are._

_I feel like I'm in a place where I'll get in trouble if I talk too loudly. I can almost understand how Ishida came out so weird, growing up here._

This house's owner strikes Karin as a bit off as well. She doesn't know if Ryuuken doesn't know how to behave around children (Karin doesn't see how that could be it, considering he has a son) or maybe if Ryuuken just doesn't like having to deal with people (she can sympathize, if so), but he's more than a little standoffish. Normally, that sort of thing wouldn't bother Karin, but with everything that's going on, it bothers her now, as she reads something secretive into Ryuuken's behavior.

She's sure he's lying about not knowing where Isshin's gone, too. Karin knows Ryuuken's lying, and if it wasn't for the fact that she's a guest here, she'd tell him that. This whole thing stinks.

"Karin?"

Karin is roused from her musings by the spark of curiosity that drove Yuzu to speak. She looks over and sees her sister's brow furrowed perplexedly. "One of Ichigo's friends is Ishida-san's son, right?"

The dark-haired girl nods cautiously. _Well if Yuzu can spot the resemblance, I guess I was right. _"I think so."

"Where is he, then? He didn't seem very outgoing; you'd think he'd be home right now."

_Took the words right out of my mouth. _Karin shrugs. "Dunno. I wouldn't worry about it."

_He's probably with Ichigo, _Karin realizes dully, setting her lips in a thin line, _wherever he is. That group of Ichigo's always goes together when they disappear._

_(Or maybe one of us will just open up the wrong closet door, and a corpse'll come tumbling out. I don't care how "perfect" everything seems here; the cleaner the facade, the dirtier what lies beneath.)  
><em>

_I hope Ichigo comes back soon._


	178. 178: Bacteria

**Title**: Bacteria**  
>AN**: This was another one of those chapters that was hard to write. It wasn't hard because of the emotions within, but just because I wasn't sure how to structure it. I hope you like it. And, umm, given that I haven't really read too much of the Fullbringer arc, I don't know if it's addressed there, but are we operating under the assumption that Mayuri is _still _using the bacteria to spy on Uryuu? One would hope that eventually Mayuri got bored and deactivated the bacteria, but given that he probably didn't tell Uryuu that, I can imagine the poor kid still thinks twice every time he starts to get undressed to shower.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>Though not to others, Uryuu is more than willing to admit to himself that he was praying for someone to find them while Szayel was taking his time slowly killing him and Renji. <em>Note to self: The next time I kill someone, I need to make <em>sure _they're dead. It would save me a great deal of trouble in the future. _Pretty much anyone would have been acceptable, sans maybe Ichigo; Uryuu doesn't think he could have lived with the humiliation if it had been Ichigo.

However, just because Uryuu wasn't feeling particularly picky when he sent up this prayer, didn't mean that he was alright with _him _showing up.

Uryuu never told anyone about what he learned in the course of his fight with Kurotsuchi Mayuri, so naturally he supposes that he would get no sympathy from the crowd if he suddenly opened fire. He never saw any meaning to tell anyone, because he doubted that anyone he could tell would actually care. He shelved thoughts of killing Mayuri in vengeance for all his dead relatives firstly because he no longer had the means to do so, and when that was reversed, both because he was under oath not to contact the Shinigami and because Uryuu isn't about to let something like a thirst for revenge, however justified, totally overtake his life.

That's not to say he would unhappy if Mayuri was to suddenly be killed. If he who has become the monster constantly present on the edges of his awareness was taken from his life, Uryuu would probably dance on the man's grave, spit on the freshly turned earth, and not care who saw him do it. He'd be even happier if he got to be the one who snuffed out that life. _Why should he live, live free and without having to watch the shadows or look over his shoulder every day, when he's ended the lives of so many others?_

(_Would I really do that_? Uryuu wonders, frowning. _Would I really go so far as to desecrate a man's grave? Would I really go that low? _In his more vindictive imaginings, Uryuu has imagined doing things like that, but in real life? He doesn't know.)

As such, Uryuu isn't entirely sure who he ought to be rooting for when Mayuri and Szayel start to do battle. On the one hand, he knows that it would be far better for him if Szayel was to die. On the other, if Szayel was to kill Mayuri, while that would put Uryuu in a tight spot, he wouldn't exactly be complaining. It's only what Szayel does to Nemu that puts him firmly in the "Szayel must die" camp; there's not a whole lot of room for ambiguity after that.

He's still not happy with this situation; far from it. _Why did it have to be him? Why, of all the people in all of existence did it have to be him? If it wasn't for these injuries, I'd do more than shout at him. I'd probably try to kill him. There's no time for me to be getting into unnecessary fights—finding Inoue-san is more important than that—but it would cross my mind. One shot in the right place to incapacitate, then keep firing. That's all it would take. That's all I'd have to do. _

Perhaps when his friends _aren't _in danger and _aren't_ possibly in danger of dying, and Uryuu has occasion to be in the same room as Mayuri, that will be what happens, but right now, he has more important things to pursue. _Let's go with the ones who are still here. The ones who are gone are, well… _gone. _They're more patient. I hope._

Uryuu thinks of his grandfather with something dangerously close to shame. Soken didn't deserve the hand he was dealt and the man who dealt the hand is standing right in front of him. If he was able-bodied, and wasn't worrying about the lives of his friends, then yes, he'd attempt to get something resembling justice for his grandfather. But for now, it's just going to have to wait. _Sorry._

(Once again, Uryuu wonders if he would really do that, would really go that far. He grimaces as he thinks about the finer details of revenge and the ramifications of it. He thinks that if he killed a Shinigami captain, he could pretty much kiss his life goodbye, and wonders if his grandfather really want him to throw his life away like that. He wonders if _he _wants to throw his life away like that. _Killing him won't bring any of them back. There's nothing that will do that. I'm the only one who will suffer for killing him; I won't gain anything from it. Do I want to go that far?_

Uryuu supposes he'll have to devote more thought to it later.)

Soon, though, very soon, Uryuu has something new to contemplate, something new to be reeling over.

Bacteria. The only time Uryuu has ever given thought to bacteria in the past, it was to remember to clean his wounds so that he wouldn't get an infection. Ryuuken had unceremoniously given him the rundown on bacterial infections the first time he had occasion to look over the boy's wounds after the first night Uryuu killed a Hollow. Bacteria is only relevant to Uryuu's life in that he has antiseptic in order to prevent infections.

Well, Mayuri has just opened him up to whole new worlds of possibilities concerning bacteria.

Uryuu doesn't think he was imagining the trilling little note of sadistic glee in Mayuri's voice as he explained things. Sometime during their clash in the Soul Society, Mayuri had placed bacteria on him for surveillance purposes. He planted bacteria, millions upon millions of bacteria, apparently harmless but at the same time unable to be killed, ever multiplying, on Uryuu's body, for constant, twenty-four hour surveillance, and he was recording every moment of it.

A wave of nausea comes over Uryuu, the urge to be physically ill almost overwhelming, which is no mean feat considering he doesn't currently have a stomach to be ill with. At the same time there is a spike of white-hot hatred, burning so hotly that his throat feels scorched, and Uryuu is reminded once again just how much he hates this man. Loathing and revulsion is leveled against the man who first ruined his life and now seems intent on breaking his mind with sheer depravity.

_Well, congratulations, Kurotsuchi. You certainly seem to have perfected your stalking technique. _Uryuu is starting to have trouble clinging to the elusive fringe of consciousness, and it must show in his face (despite all efforts to hide it), because Renji is shooting concerned-while-trying-not-to-give-the-appearance-of-it looks at him, trying to be surreptitious about it and failing. However close he might be to blacking out, the scene before him starting to blur, Uryuu is lucid enough to realize the implications of Mayuri's actions against him.

_He knows where I live. _There are more than a few expletives that Uryuu can think of, but none of them are nearly strong enough to adequately describe the severity of the situation. Mayuri knows where Uryuu lives (and has seen Uryuu's childhood home as well), knows where he goes to school. He knows what routes he walks in the morning and the evening, knows the names and faces of his friends and neighbors. He knows what he eats and drinks, knows where he goes to buy his groceries, knows where he goes to buy takeout when that's all he can afford.

He's watched him do all of this, been watching this whole time, been watching him as he sleeps and showers. At that thought, Uryuu suddenly feels even more as though he's about to vomit, despite the fact that he _still _does not currently have a stomach. _I may never shower again. Well, if I get out of this alive, I may never shower again._

And, Uryuu realizes, Mayuri knows about Ryuuken.

At first, there is a shoot of fear that surprises Uryuu immensely. Once he gets over the shock, he grimaces, eyes drooping, as he realizes what he's afraid of. _You're afraid that the monster in your life will take him from you too. You're afraid that he'll do the same to him as he did to Grandfather, and that you'll never see him again._

Then, Uryuu scoffs despite himself, trying his best to banish those troubling thoughts from his head. He doesn't need to be worrying about Ryuuken; Ryuuken can handle himself just fine. He would absolutely _obliterate _Mayuri, and quite frankly, Uryuu would pay good money to see that fight. Ryuuken is in no danger.

Whatever anyone thinks of the way he has chosen to react to this revelation (loud and hysterically), Uryuu doesn't care. He feels cold all over, a knot forming in his throat as it burns with shame. Mayuri has been watching him every moment of every day since he returned home from the Soul Society, observing all of his daily life and has put on stark, sterile display what ought to be the most private activities of his life. He feels sick, exposed, violated, like he'll never be clean or have his privacy back again. _He knows every scar, every last mark, probably better than even I know them. Why? Why couldn't he just leave me alone?_

Uryuu doubts that Mayuri would stop just because he asked him to; if anything, that effort would probably earn nothing but derisive laughter. In fact, the only way Uryuu can imagine it stopping, knowing that he has absolutely no other recourse, would be if he was to kill Mayuri. Now, Uryuu has an even more intensely personal reason to want to kill Mayuri than before, but he is forced to acknowledge that while killing him won't bring his grandfather back, it won't give him back his sense of security either.

So he waits for everything to be over with, hoping that he'll live. Uryuu thinks of Orihime and the others, and tells himself that the only reason, if he recovers, that he won't be gunning for Mayuri's head is that getting Orihime out is more important than revenge.

He feels sick, and doesn't think he'll ever look at bacteria the same way again.


	179. 179: Awkward

**Title**: Awkward**  
>AN**: While I like to think that Uryuu and Renji became friends, considering how they first met, things must have been pretty awkward between them at first.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>"You didn't have to make such a racket about it," Renji mutters, leaning back and, as he was told, careful not to put too much pressure on tender spots. "You're better off like this no matter who's giving you help."<p>

Uryuu glowers, and chooses not to dignify that with a response. It's only the fact that he's sure he'd get no sympathy that keeps him from telling Renji _exactly_ why he has chosen to object so vehemently—and loudly—to Mayuri's "help."

The fight between Mayuri and Szayel has since concluded with the latter's death, unsurprisingly to anyone with a hint of savvy. Uryuu can't decide whether to treat the way Mayuri chose to kill Szayel as vindictively satisfying or just further proof of how monstrous the man is. Now that the Espada is dead, Mayuri is taking the liberty of rooting through Szayel's effects, taking especial interest in his dead foe's laboratories, claiming for his own anything he finds remotely interesting. Personally, Uryuu can't help but find that immensely disturbing.

He and Renji have been left to their own devices; that is to say, to heal, and wait until they've healed enough that they can actually move again.

Quite frankly, Uryuu's getting tired of the wait.

Renji either doesn't take the hint supplied by Uryuu's silence, or he's finding the silence awkward enough that he's willing to initiate conversation with someone so unsociable as Uryuu. The Shinigami reaches over to shove Uryuu in the shoulder gently. _Trying to foster a sense of companionability, _Uryuu realizes. He frowns a little bit at the still-foreign feeling of it, but doesn't object.

"And don't tell me you're complaining about the way Kurotsuchi-taicho got you to shut up. You try to tell me you didn't like it, and I'll _know _you're a liar."

There's a distinctly pointed note in Renji's voice at this assertion, and he is immediately treated to the sight of Uryuu's face, neck and ears going several more different shades of red than he even knew existed. "Abarai-kun, can we _not_ talk about that?" Uryuu asks testily, struggling to keep his voice even. If he didn't know better, he'd swear his ears were on fire. "And _don't _call me a liar." Uryuu has never appreciated it when people impugn his honor.

To this, Renji smirks knowingly, but mercifully does not pursue the subject further, and Uryuu is left to brooding again.

_When am I going to be able to get moving again? _To Uryuu, every moment he spends here, waiting for his body to heal enough for him to function properly is another moment wasted, a moment he could be spending searching for Orihime. Any of the others are just as likely to find her as he, Uryuu's more than willing to admit that, but Uryuu isn't helping to find her and get her out of this labyrinth by sitting on the ground, nursing his wounds.

_Hurry up. Come on, hurry up. I'm no use to Inoue-san or anyone else like this. I have to be able to fight. I have to be able to find her. Come on._

"Can't this go any faster?" Uryuu growls, not to anyone in particular. He didn't even mean to say it out loud, not really. He's so unused to there being an audience when he vents his frustrations that he doesn't even notice anymore when he says things out loud instead of in his head.

Therefore, he's surprised when Renji answers. "Griping about it's not going to make it go any faster." There's an edge to his voice that suggests the same tenseness that Uryuu feels, but he seems somewhat more content to wait.

Uryuu turns his eyes on the Shinigami sitting next to him, those blue eyes shooting daggers. "My grasp of time is not deficient in any way, Abarai-kun."

"Just cool it, okay." Uryuu bristles at the placatory note in Renji's voice. He knows Renji means well, he knows that, but it still seems so condescending, somehow. _I'm still not used to it, I guess. _"You're only gonna hurt yourself if you try to run off before this is done."

They fall to silence again. Uryuu's face burns and he doesn't look to see what, if anything, Renji is doing. His thoughts are still flooded with wondering where Orihime is and if she's alright, and wondering, why, _why _this process can't go any faster. _Why does time always seem to slow down when I get frustrated?_

A stream of muffled cursing comes from one of the buildings off to the side of the vaulted chamber; it sounds like Mayuri's stubbed his toe on something. Uryuu smirks in spite of himself.

Once in a while, Uryuu feels eyes on the side of his head, and though he doesn't look for himself, he gets the impression that Renji is throwing awkward glances at him. He doesn't ask why, and doesn't acknowledge that he knows he's being looked at; Uryuu is too fond of the silence, uncomfortable as it may be, to break it and have to talk to Renji again.

_Just what am I supposed to say to him, anyway? I have a hard enough time talking to people I know, and I barely know Abarai-kun at all._

Then, for good or ill, Renji decides to break the silence.

"Uh, listen, kid, about the whole "trying to kill you" _thing_…" Renji trails off uncomfortably, and Uryuu's eyebrows shoot up as he looks over at him. Renji has his hands clasped together and his tattooed brow is scrunched up like an accordion.

It takes Uryuu a moment to realize that Renji's talking about the way they first met, with the latter badly wounding him for trying to keep Rukia from being taken back to the Soul Society. _So it was him after all, and not Kuchiki-san's brother, and he really was trying to kill me. Wait, is he trying to apologize? _Uryuu squints as he examines Renji's face more closely. _Is Abarai-kun the sort of person to apologize over something like that? I thought he'd just view it as a part of his job and nothing to be sorry about. Maybe it's just because of where we are now. That's probably it._

Jumping on that line of logic, Uryuu suddenly finds that it's not so difficult to speak after all. "Abarai-kun, _lots _of people have tried to kill me; you're hardly the only one," Uryuu remarks, deadpan. "The list includes, but is not limited to every Hollow I have ever encountered since the age of twelve, and quite a few before then, our recent Arrancar attacker—" a vein in Uryuu's jaw jumps tensely "—"he who shall not be named"—"

"Kurotsuchi-taicho."

"—and another person, whom I would rather not talk about at the moment," Uryuu concludes, pretending that Renji never interrupted him. Of course, Renji interrupts him again soon enough.

Renji snorts. "Who's the "other person" you won't talk about? Your dad?" The acidity level in his voice is quite astounding.

"Yes," Uryuu responds quietly, before he can stop himself, not looking at Renji. _Why did I say that? _he wonders to himself furiously. _Why should I tell him? I didn't want anyone to know, especially not a near-stranger._

And for the record, no, Uryuu is still not convinced that, had he died that night, Ryuuken wouldn't have just left his body down in the chamber to rot and continued to go about his business upstairs, as though he had never existed. Ryuuken has given him no reason to believe that he wouldn't have done this.

"_What_?" Renji all but shouts, an expression of alarm coming over his face, and Uryuu regrets his slip of the tongue even more.

"Quiet over there!" comes a shout from the one of the side buildings, and Renji grimaces.

Uryuu pretends that Renji never spoke, and doesn't meet his now slightly wild-eyed gaze. "The point is, Abarai-kun, that you were hardly the first to try to kill me, and you weren't the last. I doubt that you had anything personal against me at the time, so can we please just behave as though it never happened?" Uryuu asks weakly. He doesn't want to discuss this anymore, isn't comfortable with the conversation that they're having.

Renji nods warily. "Sure. Anything _else_ about your home life you'd like to share, Ishida?" he asks sarcastically.

"_Forget I said anything_," Uryuu mutters through clenched teeth. He goes back to brooding about Orihime and how long it's going to be before he can get moving again. _It really does feel as though I've been waiting forever; when I get home I'm going to have to ask Urahara-san if Hueco Mundo can produce a warped perception of time._

Apparently, Renji notices that he's resumed brooding in full force. "You're really worried about her, aren't you?" he asks, surprisingly gently.

Uryuu doesn't look at him, staring holes into the ground. "If I wasn't, would I be here?" he points out, voice barely audible. "Would I have come this far, if I wasn't worried?"

"Well, quit worrying." Uryuu stares incredulously at him and Renji lifts a hand, signaling to give him a moment so he can explain. "Inoue will be fine; as long as you believe that, you'll be fine too. You're certainly not going to be fine if you let your worrying about her distract you when you're fighting. Inoue won't thank you for ending up dead that way."

All Uryuu wishes at this point is that he could tell Renji that it's not that simple, that no, he doesn't let worry cloud his judgment when he fights but that he can't just turn his worry off like a switch. It doesn't work like that. But no, Uryuu can't say it, can't bring himself to say that Renji's advice is useless.

It was good of him to try, though.


	180. 180: Found

**Title**: Found**  
>AN**: Okay, here's another short one.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>All is quiet again. Ichigo and his new foe—Uryuu thinks he caught the name 'Ulquiorra' at some point or another—have moved their battle elsewhere, to a place less restricted by the architecture of the walls and ceiling. Uryuu supposes that this choice is probably for the best; the way they're going, they'd probably bring down the building around them.<p>

_Good luck, Kurosaki. You'll need it. _Uryuu likes to think that Ichigo will win. In his experience, the only way serious fights with Ichigo ever end are with the orange-headed Shinigami prevailing, or with Ichigo so badly wounded as to be totally incapacitated; since the latter option is unacceptable, he goes with the former, and tells himself that Ichigo will win.

_He'll win_. _He has to,_ Uryuu thinks, as he looks up at a hole in a sky that's turned out to be false after all. _I don't know what's more unnerving, the idea of a false sky, or being reminded again just how big Las Noches is. I suppose the Shinigami must have done this, once they took over; they must not have liked the idea of never being able to look up and see the sun. But still, the idea of a false sky is _really _creepy._

Uryuu keeps on watching the hole in the sky, trying to catch any sign of Ichigo, until a flash of copper-red catches his eye, and he looks over at his fellow anxious observer.

Orihime seems, to the eye, relatively unharmed. There are worrying tears and blood smears on her clothes, but she's walking, talking, doesn't appear to be injured, and most importantly, she's _alive. _After all this time in a den of vipers, surrounded by beings who would kill her if given the opportunity, she's still alive.

_I don't know about Kurosaki, but I have no intention of letting her out of my sight until we get out of here. Is that weird? Is it creepy? Is it sexist? I don't know. I don't care. There's so many ways Inoue-san could still end up dead here; I'm not taking my eyes off her until I know she's safe._

There are few words Uryuu can summon at his relief at seeing Orihime again, but that relief is tempered as he looks at her more closely.

Outwardly, apart from the strange clothes she's wearing, Orihime seems the same as she ever has. Thin and pretty, with long red hair and brown eyes and those omnipresent green hairpins, and when he catches her eye, she even wears something like the same smile Uryuu has grown so used to.

But it all seems so forced.

Uryuu can catch the same hints that he caught the last time he saw Orihime, something starting to crack and break in the façade. It's stronger now; whatever hides beneath those smiles is getting harder to hide. And that smile is stretched almost to breaking; she's not even trying to give something resembling the megawatt smile everyone knows her to have. She looks flat, two-dimensional, rung out. A brittle girl made of glass, pretty to look at but abused by careless hands and cruel tides of fortune, the cracks threatening to break her all the way through. It must be apparent to anyone who sees her now, not just those who look beyond the level of cursory examination, in the wild quality of those wide brown eyes.

"Inoue-san…" Orihime tilts her head slightly when Uryuu speaks, and at her gaze, he feels his cheeks burn, and looks away. He almost follows up with _'I'm glad you're okay', _but doesn't. The words sound trite, even before leaving his mouth, and they stay shut up in the trap of his throat. _No, I shouldn't say anything yet. _Maybe he's just a coward, but the timing doesn't feel right. And he's not sure that she's alright.

'_I'm glad you're okay' _isn't what Orihime wants to hear, anyway; Uryuu's sure of it. He doubts she wants to hear his empty platitudes, his expressions of relief; they would ring so hollow on her ears.

Instead, what Uryuu says is what he is certain Orihime wants to hear said. "I'm sure he'll be fine."

Somehow, Uryuu manages to make his words sound confident, and Orihime smiles a little bit, maybe out of gratitude, or maybe because she's trying to tell herself that as much as he is. _He's the one she's worried about. He's the one she needs to know will be alright. Not me. I have to remember that. _Uryuu thinks of the only person on Earth he'll fake a smile for, and tells himself that he doesn't need to let her worries run rampant in her head.

_You'd better be alright, Kurosaki. She would miss you, and I would miss you too._


	181. 181: Scream

**Title**: Scream**  
>AN**: Though Orihime's is the only one really focused on (for reasons that I can understand), I can't help but think that when the two of them get to the dome and see Ichigo dead, Uryuu's having a reaction too.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>The sight makes his blood run cold, but it's the scream from her mouth that feels like a hand digging into his chest to rip his heart out through the bones.<p>

Uryuu looks at the limp, so oddly small body swinging by its neck from Ulquiorra's long, whip-like tail, like a convict caught in the noose. He watches that body fall. And he watches Orihime fall apart entirely right in front of him.

_Kurosaki's dead. _That's the first thought that runs through his mind when he sees him, caught by the neck in Ulquiorra's tail. He pays barely any mind to the eerie, bat-like form the Espada has assumed; all that holds the attention of Uryuu's eyes is Ichigo. Like Orihime, it's all he can look at.

_He's dead. _There's a hole a bit smaller than the size of a basketball in Ichigo's chest, exactly in the place where his heart would be. _He's dead. That has to be it. _His skin is waxen and his eyes are open. Those eyes are like marbles, polished but dull, holding no light. Those lightless eyes are frozen in place, staring into space, and they pierce straight through Uryuu's skin. _He is dead._

There's no way to mistake it. Ichigo is dead.

_God, not again._

Uryuu looks at the sight before him, and he can feel his stomach churning sickly. _Why? You were supposed to win. You were supposed to beat him and come back down so we could all go home. That's all I wanted, to just get back home in one piece, and without losing anyone. What happened?_

If Ichigo could see Uryuu's face now, he'd probably snort and mock him for looking so pale, so slack-jawed, so lost, but Uryuu wouldn't hear, and it's no laughing matter. All Uryuu can do is stare, and try to sort out the jumbled mass of his thoughts from his hammering heart and stinging eyes.

Since they met, things between Uryuu and Ichigo haven't exactly been what someone could call a "lovey-dovey everything's fine" friendship. They snark, they argue, they insult. Every day it's the same thing, unless the situation is so serious that such behavior would be unacceptable. If Ichigo doesn't needle at him, doesn't smirk and point out when he's doing something "weird", Uryuu can't help but feel like there must be something wrong. At times, it seems as though they can barely stand each other.

But though they don't talk about it, and though Uryuu would never admit it out loud, he does like Ichigo. He does care about him. And he didn't want him to die.

_You weren't supposed to die. _Funny. One second ago his heart hammered so hard that Uryuu feared it would rip apart like paper; now, he can barely hear it beat. _You were supposed to win. You were supposed to beat him. You were supposed to live. Don't you know that you can't die? Don't you know that there are people who still need you? Don't you know that there are people who would miss you if you died?_

Uryuu tries to imagine his life without Ichigo in it and fails. He never really knew him until a few months ago, but he can no longer imagine life without him; it's not a life Uryuu would ever want to live. Loud, blunt, brash Ichigo. Even after a month of enforced separation, he's still such a fixture in his life, an ineffable part of the landscape of his mind. The thought of Ichigo not being there anymore, the thought of him being dead, Uryuu doesn't want to accept it.

But there's no getting around it. _Why do they always die? Why do they always have to die? _The eyes don't lie. Uryuu looks at Ichigo, and the clean, round hole where his heart used to be, and knows that there is no way that he's still alive. _Why?_

_Do you know, Kurosaki, that I will miss you? You'd probably laugh yourself to death—again—at the thought, but I would. I do._

The pale, limp, gently swinging corpse that was once Kurosaki Ichigo is held on display. Ulquiorra says something that is lost to the wind that is like a chorus moaning, howling. This is like some grotesque, macabre display, a straw effigy waiting to be burned on a high place, except it's all too real. Uryuu's stomach does back flips, his eyes sting and cloud, and his throat ties itself into ever-tighter knots as it sets in, over and over again, that this is real. There will be no recovery, no salvaging this situation.

And then the body drops, and Orihime screams as though her world has been set ablaze.

It might be a word ripped from her mouth, but the sound is nothing resembling human. _I didn't know a human could even make that sort of sound. _The scream is long and inhuman and splits the night sky apart.

Uryuu is forced to shake off his own numbing horror when he sees Orihime go running to catch Ichigo's body and Ulquiorra starts to descend. _I never should have brought her up here, _he berates himself. _I should have said 'no' and stayed put. Even if I told myself that Kurosaki would win, I knew that this might happen, and I knew how Inoue-san would react if she was forced to witness it._

In Orihime, what was threatening to break has broken. Her face is white as ash and sodden, hair clinging fiercely to her wet cheeks. That scream is the howl pent up for so long finally finding voice when she can't hold it back any longer.

_She's cracked. She's completely cracked. I should have known this would happen. _Ichigo is the most important person in Orihime's world; she has a crush on him so blatant that pretty much everyone but Ichigo, utterly oblivious to the feelings of others, has noticed it. She can't imagine her life without Ichigo any more than Uryuu can, and her world breaks at the thought of him dead. She's so consumed by grief that she doesn't notice that she's still in danger.

Uryuu draws his bow and prepares to fight, even knowing that however this plays out, he won't be able to win. As a long-range fighter he's at a disadvantage here, limited by his reliance on arrows and his relative fragility when compared to an Arrancar. And if Ichigo, Ichigo the powerhouse, Ichigo who always seems to come out on top eventually, couldn't beat Ulquiorra, couldn't survive, Uryuu doesn't see how he can.

"How unexpected." Ulquiorra emerges from the onslaught without so much as a scratch. He doesn't even look alarmed, instead displaying an expression of mild, detached interest. "I had estimated that, out of all of Kurosaki Ichigo's comrades, you were the most calm."

"I am calm." Uryuu's heart, hammering in his throat, and his mind, urging him to flee, tells him otherwise, but he meets the Espada's gaze squarely and readies himself to fire again. The sound of Orihime's hysterical sobs nearly overwhelms him with the instinct to turn around and try to comfort her, but he keeps his eyes on his foe. "That's why I can fight you!"

Uryuu has two people in all of existence whom he would term 'close friends.' Out of these two, one is dead and the other is on the verge of having a nervous breakdown, if she hasn't had one already. If Ichigo is dead, then Uryuu will fight to keep Orihime from dying too, and to try to finish what Ichigo started, even though he knows that he has no chance of winning.

It's all he can do.


	182. 182: Hear

**Title**: Hear**  
>AN**: Since I've never been stabbed or lost a great deal of blood before, I can't speak as to the thought process of someone who's undergone that. I hope that this comes across as realistic, regardless.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>Uryuu isn't as grieved by the loss of his hand as he would be, if he had time to think about it. There is blinding pain for a moment, but that pain is offset by a syringe and the amount of adrenaline pumping through his veins. There is a glance given to his left arm, and his stomach turns when he sees not a hand, but a ragged, gory stump dripping dark blood trails on the ground, a little bit of bone poking out through the flesh, but Uryuu is not consumed with thoughts of it. He has more important things to worry about.<p>

_I won't be able to shoot arrows anymore. I won't be able to call myself an archer anymore. Of course, I'm not going to be alive anymore, not for much longer, not unless I focus my attention on the task at hand. I can still fight. I have to._

That doesn't work as well as Uryuu would have liked. But now, he has another problem.

Namely, the sword protruding from his abdomen.

In retrospect, Uryuu knows he should have picked up on something wrong. The reiatsu was all wrong, dark and wild and untamed, and the way he behaved in battle was unlike anything Uryuu had ever seen from him before. _I ought to have known better. _There was the altered appearance to take into account as well.

All this Uryuu saw, but never really registered until it was too late. In part, he blames it on the blood loss—_This can't be good for my anemia_—and the drugs clouding his judgment, slowing reaction times, and making him act in a way that went against common sense. However, perhaps the largest reason for his lapse in good judgment was that he was just so _happy _to see Ichigo alive.

_I must have been wrong. He must not have been dead after all, and Inoue-san was able to do something for him. I don't think I've ever been so happy to be wrong._

Ichigo had gotten up as though he'd never fallen. Uryuu had felt a wave of relief, warm and welcoming, wash over him at he sight, because he with his lost hand, spinning head and aching ribs had so painfully proven to be no match for the likes of Ulquiorra. The taste of shame and defeat was bitter in his mouth, the certainty that he and Orihime were going to die here too a leaden weight in his stomach, but Ichigo got up, able-bodied, sword in hand, and surely he would be able to do something.

And he did. True to his reputation of always managing to come out on top, Ichigo proceeded to wipe the floor with his adversary. It was all Uryuu and Orihime could do to keep from being swept off the top of the dome and down into the desert below from the screaming winds produced.

When the wind stopped and the dust cleared away, Uryuu could see that Ichigo had won. The mangled form of the Espada, almost certainly dead, was caught firmly in his grasp. He could also see that Ichigo was on the verge of ripping the corpse limb from limb.

If his head had been clearer and he wasn't dealing with the pervasive blanket of fog brought about by blood loss and drugs, Uryuu likes to believe that he would have behaved differently. If he had been all there, he likes to think he would have recognized that he didn't need to be approaching Ichigo while he was in the midst of a rampage. Uryuu knew through the grapevine and from the occasional snatches of familiar-yet-unfamiliar reiatsu that Ichigo was plagued by inner conflict with an "inner Hollow" and he should have been able to see that Ichigo would not respond, at least not in the way Uryuu hoped he would.

Uryuu did not see that. What he saw was Ichigo preparing to carve up Ulquiorra's corpse like a roast, and he went over to try to stop him.

"Kurosaki." Uryuu had his remaining hand closed around Ichigo's wrist, and the icy chill of his skin crept up Uryuu's arm. He noticed, troublingly, that he couldn't feel a pulse. _It's like he's still dead. _There was no answer. "He's dead. It's over." Uryuu's steady voice belied the way the world was beginning to blur. "There's no need to cut up his corpse."

Again, there was no answer. Ichigo, with his silence and the impassive mask he wore, gave no sign that he even heard him at all.

"Don't you hear me?" Uryuu's lip curled back to reveal teeth; blood started pounding in his ears. "If you do this, you won't be human anymore." Still, no answer. "Kurosaki!"

_We have to leave. We came to find Inoue-san, and we found her; we should go home before any of us get killed. We shouldn't waste any more time here._

_Don't do this. I understand killing him; leaving him alive would have come back to bite us eventually. But it's enough that you've killed him. If you want to confirm that he's dead, check for a pulse or cut off his head. Don't carve up his corpse like a pig at the slaughter. You're a warrior, not a butcher. Only Hollows mutilate their kills, desecrate the corpses of those whom they've killed, show no respect for the sanctity of death, and if you cross that line, you won't be able to come back. Please don't do this._

_Can't you hear me?_

Ichigo never acknowledges his words. What he does instead is stab him and resume his business.

It doesn't hurt nearly as much as a sword going in his stomach and out his back ought to. That's what Uryuu thinks first as he falls to the ground. It could be the painkillers talking; they seem to have lasted longer than what he took to keep from bleeding out, since there is now blood spilling down the front of his shirt and from the stump of his left arm. Uryuu has never before given much thought to what it would feel like to be stabbed, but he supposes that it would be a blinding pain. What he feels instead is the sort of blunt pain he feels when he's stuck with a hypodermic needle for an injection. Far more piercing are Orihime's high-pitched, frantic screams.

_It doesn't hurt as much as I thought it would. Losing my hand hurt worse than this. _Uryuu stares down at the black blade buried in his flesh with a strange, detached fascination. _It's really very odd-looking, and it doesn't feel nearly as bad as I thought it would. It's like getting an injection, but no one ever bothers to pull out the needle. It doesn't hurt all that bad.  
><em>

Of course, getting an injection never made Uryuu bleed so much either, and again, Uryuu finds himself preoccupied with the thought that this can't possibly be good for his anemia. _I really should have remembered to take my medication. I already have a bad enough time of it when I'm _not _losing a ridiculous amount of blood; I don't exactly live the sort of lifestyle amenable to recovering from anemia—if I can even recover from it at all—but this is just adding insult to injury. _The fact that he has such a hard time disentangling his concentration from this preoccupation with his anemia is unlikely to be a good sign.

He's practically swimming in his own blood; at least that's how it looks to him. In the darkness of Hueco Mundo, illuminated only by a cold moon and a few scattered stars, Uryuu stares down at a black sea at his feet. It sloshes about, it dyes his clothes dark, and the stink rises in his nostrils like a corpse demanding attention. _So much blood. I didn't know there was so much blood inside of me._ That's not likely to be a good sign either.

_I failed. _This truth is hard to swallow, but it's there, and as Uryuu's eyes start to blur again, the scene before him going just a little foggy, it settles over him like a cloak of dust and old memories.

He couldn't stop Ulquiorra, and now, his voice has failed to reach Ichigo through his own fog of incoherence.

_My own fault for just walking up without evaluating the situation first, I suppose._

_This isn't him. _Odd, but Uryuu can't find anger anywhere. The blood loss is almost certainly sapping away any strong emotion, but even then, if he was angry, or inclined towards anger, there would still be something, even if it was only the hint of a voice in the distance.

_Usually, when someone is stabbed, they are angry with the one who's stabbed them. Not now, apparently. _All Uryuu can tell himself is that Ichigo is possessed, out of control, whatever. It's not him in the driver's seat of his head. That's all he can figure, all he can guess for the reason he's not angry and all he dares contemplate as the reason he's on the ground with the familiar zanpakuto sticking out of his belly; the alternative is too much to countenance. _I guess I should have tried harder to get him to listen._

A sudden burst of light draws Uryuu's attention back to what Ichigo is doing, and he grimaces ruefully. _Ah, that._

All Uryuu can hope for now is that Ichigo wake up on his own. Preferably before he kills him. That would be nice.


	183. 183: Wishing

**Title**: Wishing**  
>AN**: And once again, while Uryuu seemed to disappear from the landscape while Ulquiorra was dying (I understand that the focus was on the characters—Ichigo and Orihime—who were most likely to make it meaningful, but this was just egregious), we the readers do remember that he was there. As one of the readers, I have to wonder what he thought of all this, and what was going on afterwards.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>"Do I frighten you, girl?"<p>

"No, you don't."

Uryuu doesn't have the best vantage point from which to watch the passing of the fourth Espada, but he still watches, preferring to focus on this instead.

As it turns out, Ulquiorra hadn't been dead after all, and his resuming his fight with Ichigo is probably the only reason Uryuu himself isn't dead right now. _Well at least he woke up before he could blast me clean off the top of the dome. _But it seems that Ulquiorra was still dying, after all.

A few flakes of ash, carried by the gentle wind, settle by Uryuu's hand. Ash, that's it. Ulquiorra is breaking away into ash. _Was ash all he was made of? I've read stories where creatures made out of something like ash or stone or water revert to that state when they die. Is that what's happening?_

Ichigo and Orihime, Uryuu can see their faces, see the almost grieved expression on their pale, strained faces at Ulquiorra's imminent passing. Uryuu doesn't really understand what they're feeling—all he can feel is a heavy relief that it's finally over—but there are a lot of things about this that he doesn't understand. He can only watch with increasing apathy, struggling to keep his eyes open, and wonder why he can not fully connect emotions with reality.

If Ichigo is saddened by his foe's death, then Uryuu supposes it stems from that odd squeamishness he exhibits sometimes with killing his opponents. _"Is this any way to win?" _Ichigo had shouted that, and though the words had assaulted Uryuu's ears, he hadn't and still doesn't understand the emotions surrounding it. He can't make his mind grasp it.

Orihime was a prisoner here; from what Uryuu understands, Ulquiorra was her jailor. If she feels pain at him dying, he supposes that it comes from her inherently compassionate nature; too compassionate for her own good, and so lucky that the people she fell in with aren't the sort to take advantage of it.

_She keeps trying to grab his hand, even after he's gone. _Uryuu can't understand that compassion. Surely even Orihime must have limits as to the kindness she is capable of. Of everything he understands less and less with each moment, and he can't fathom Orihime's empathy. It all seems so futile.

Eventually, all that is left of Ulquiorra, that pale, cold ash, is carried away by the wind, not to be seen or found again. Ichigo and Orihime turn to each other and start to speak with voices so soft that Uryuu can't hear—_or maybe his hearing starts to fail him._

He wants to cry out to get their attention. Uryuu doesn't know what he would say—maybe _"Don't forget about me!", "I'm still here!", "Could really use some help over here!" _or something churlish like that. But he can't make his voice rise loud enough for them to hear it, and as the moments slip away, it doesn't matter as much to him anymore.

_I just wish they would look at me._

Uryuu thinks about his recent behavior as regards to Ulquiorra and his drooping eyes spark a little, for just a moment. _When did I become willing to die for these people? _It's confusing. Fight, yes, suffer, yes, because that's what people who care about each other ought to do, but die? Uryuu thought he cared more about his own life than that.

It doesn't really matter anymore. Nothing of what Uryuu thinks, supposes or wishes matters anymore. He feels heavy and leaden, like there are weights sewn into his clothes. It's all he can do to keep his eyes open now, and no longer is he entirely sure why he's fighting so hard to keep them open at all.

_That's it, then. _Uryuu doesn't know how he can feel so heavy when there's so much blood escaping everywhere, forming a crimson pool beneath him that in the eternal night darkness looks as black as tar. After every injury he's ever received, after every fight he's ever been in, this is going to be the one he doesn't walk away from. This isn't the way he'd imagined it, honestly. Uryuu had always thought that he would die hunting Hollows in a forest somewhere. Not here, on an alien world, because he was stabbed in the gut by a possessed friend.

Shapes seem stretched and deformed to his blurry eyes. The stars seem close and swollen, as they would be through a screen of water; the moon's shape wavers as it would when reflected in a pond. Uryuu looks over at the two who are still on the dome with him. There's a long, quiet look passed between Ichigo and Orihime, but no sign yet that they've remembered that there's another up here with them.

_Please look over here. If I have to die, I'd rather not do so completely forgotten. Allow me my vanity. _An odd twinge that might be envy holds fast in his stomach. _If you're going to have "a moment", couldn't it wait until later? Is that reasonable?_

Where his mind turns next makes no sense, but once there, Uryuu can't stop.

Ryuuken.

_I wonder again how he reacted to that note. It can't have been all that positive. I'm still glad I wasn't there for it._

There's one upside to all of this, and that upside is that he probably won't have to go home and face Ryuuken's icy wrath for first having stepped out on a training session, and more importantly, for having broken his word and re-initiated contact with the Shinigami. _He must be furious. But I wonder. Is he worried?_

Ever since he first started to hunt Hollows, Uryuu has wondered how Ryuuken would react if he was to die. Now, his mind wanders to that subject again. How would Ryuuken respond to learning that his son was dead, and never coming home? Would he perhaps mourn, or at least be affected by the news? Would he feel something like sadness or grief? Or would he, as Uryuu fears he would, simply treat the news as the signal for him to go about his business as though Uryuu never existed?

_Even after all this time telling myself that I didn't care anymore, it still hurts. I don't even know why; I ought to be used to this by now. If I died, he'd probably just live his life as though I never existed. He would forget me, or try to. The last bit of evidence that I was ever a part of his life would be gone, and he would be able to deny it with impunity. That's not what I wanted. That's never what I wanted._

Uryuu can be honest with himself now, and admit that he never wanted Ryuuken to just forget that he ever existed when he left home. It probably would have been the least painful route for both of them to take, to try and build another life without the specter of the other in it, but it wasn't what he wanted. _We're not… We're not good for each other. We never have been. Our first instinct was to tear into each other at the slightest sign of anger or weakness; that's not the calling card of a healthy relationship. But still…_

As a small child, when there was still idealism and hope of a better day to be found, Uryuu had wanted only one thing out of Ryuuken. That, of course, was love, something all children had in common. Everything else was negotiable. Uryuu would have been content to live as a pauper, as an outcast, as a homeless child with only the clothes on his back for possessions if he could have just been sure of the man who claimed the role of "parent."

Slowly, unwillingly, Uryuu realized that this was unlikely to happen. Ryuuken isn't the sort of person to love easily, and he only ever seems to have really, genuinely loved one person in his entire life. Uryuu's connection to that person, his resemblance to her, has never served him well; it's only brought him grief. And he reminded Ryuuken too much of her for him to ever accept him as something other than a painful reminder or an unwelcome shadow of her.

Abandoned were the hopes of love. That was clearly too much to hope for out of Ryuuken. For love, caring, and behavior somewhat resembling the actions of a parent, Uryuu had his grandfather. But his grandfather died, and Ryuuken was, as much as Uryuu doesn't want to admit it, all he had left. There was no one else.

_I don't know if he ever appreciated the significance of that to me. There was a time when I would have done anything._

When Uryuu gave up on love, he sought approval instead. To that end, all of his attention was devoted to excelling in school, going beyond even his normally perfectionist nature. Though he hated himself for doing it, Uryuu ignored the constant evidence of Hollow attacks all around him, tried to close his eyes to the gore and his ears to the anguished screams, even if he could never entirely close his heart to these things. All this he did in the hope of winning some measure of approval from Ryuuken. Even if it would not have been perfect, even if there would have always been the voice in the back of his head reminding him that it wasn't real, if he'd had Ryuuken's approval, he might have been able to delude himself into thinking it was love.

That fell through as well. There came the day when Uryuu could no longer ignore the cries of his conscience, any more than he could ignore the screams that came from just out of sight. Once that day came, the wish for Ryuuken's approval slipped out of sight.

After that, Uryuu set his standards a little lower, and hoped that maybe, though Ryuuken might not approve of the life that he had chosen, he would at least accept it. No. He didn't. Uryuu would have understood if Ryuuken raised objections over the danger Uryuu put himself in; if anything, he had _hoped _that Ryuuken would object to the danger inherent in a child hunting Hollows. He would have given anything for clear, unambiguous worry expressed over his safety. No. Ryuuken never gave any acceptance, and never gave any reason why, except his intolerance for the Quincy lifestyle.

_There was no acknowledgement either, not of me. He always refuses to see me as myself. I was never my own person to him, just someone who reminded him of Mother and Grandfather. I was never 'Uryuu' to him. I was the shadow of someone dead. Nothing more._

_When all that falls flat, I now find myself wanting for something different. I just wanted to hear him say that he didn't hate me for being alive when she was dead. I just wanted to know that it was okay that I was alive. Maybe, if I ever see him again, I'll tell him that. Maybe, when I'm stronger, and braver, and I no longer fear his response, I'll tell him that._

_I wish I could bring myself to ask._

They still haven't noticed. Uryuu doesn't know if a moment or an eternity has passed since he last checked, but he remains unnoticed, and unable to find the motivation to raise his voice to call out. There's very little light now—_must be dust clouds over the sky; that must be it. _The cold is absolutely piercing, and he feels heavier than ever.

Uryuu finds himself wishing; he's never liked to do that, but there seems no reason not to now. He wishes he could be consoled with the thought that he'll see his grandfather again. He wishes that things between him and Ryuuken were better than they are. He wishes that he had just one memory of his mother to cling to as he goes to the afterlife, if he dies up here. He wishes that Ichigo and Orihime would look at him, see him, so that if he does die here, so far from home, he won't die alone.

Nothing Uryuu's wished for has ever come true, but surely he could have this one, at least. Surely it's not too much to hope for.

Too much honesty for one night; Uryuu feels like he's going to be sick from it. Reality is coldness and bones that feel like they're made of stone, and eyes that can't stay open. Reality is knowing that there's too much blood gone now and that he won't be able to get their attention. Reality is knowing that, barring intervention, he won't linger on much longer. There's no room for the reality of his own life, no room to be honest about it.

He wishes to feel just one hand around his, pulling him back.

(_That's the wish that comes true._)


	184. 184: Golden

**Title**: Golden**  
>AN**: I believe that this may have been the first time Uryuu ever had occasion to be healed by Orihime, in the manga anyways; I don't know about the filler arcs in the anime. If my memory is mistaken, please let me know; I can make edits easily.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>There is a wash of soft, golden light all around, so permeating that the stars above are no longer visible and the moon is hazy as a wisp of fog. Inside the barrier, it is much warmer than it would be without, and Uryuu would be lying if he said he wasn't grateful for that. This is the first time he's felt properly warm since entering the Garganta.<p>

Though Uryuu has borne witness to Orihime healing others with her powers before, he can't say that he has ever been on the receiving end of her ministrations before now. They've been up here for, it's hard to say, maybe twenty minutes, maybe more, Orihime in a sitting position on her knees and Uryuu flat out on his back with his right arm draped over him, and Uryuu has had time to drink in what he can of what it feels like.

It's quite warm within the confines of the golden barrier. Uryuu's come to that thought before, but he doesn't think he'll ever get tired of dwelling on that fact. The warmth is not overpowering, nor is it overly muggy, nor oppressive. It's like a mild, pleasant day midway between spring and summer. After the pervasive, inescapable chill of Hueco Mundo, this warmth is like being doused with hot water beneath a showerhead, and Uryuu will regret having to leave it.

"How do you feel?" Orihime speaks now for the first time since Ichigo left them to rejoin the fighting back down in the dome. Her voice is injected with a jarringly false note of cheer.

"Alright." There's still a noticeable slur to his voice; hearing it, Uryuu resolves to make his response as brief as possible. "Don't feel like I'm gonna be sick anymore."

When the process of healing his wounds began, Uryuu had had the distinct sensation of feeling as though he would be sick. That had struck Uryuu as being odd. It's not like he's eaten anything since his stomach was regenerated; if he threw up, it would have only been bile. He never mentioned this to Orihime; it didn't seem important.

The stab wound in his abdomen has just now closed entirely; that much, Uryuu doesn't have to worry about anymore. _I can only hope that the process of healing involves blood cell regeneration as well. Otherwise, I'm going to be stuck up here for a _very _long time. _As for his left hand, well… They're still working on that.

Managing not to sigh (it wouldn't do to fluster the one currently attempting to grow back one of his limbs), Uryuu looks over at what is still the gory stump of his left arm. It's grown back a little bit, enough to be noticeable but not enough to count. When they first started, Orihime mentioned that the arm might take longer to heal, since it was Ulquiorra who had dealt the blow; she'd had difficulty explaining it, but from what Uryuu had gathered, something about the reiatsu of a powerful Arrancar made healing wounds more difficult for her. He supposes he should have realized that what Orihime meant was that this was going to take a long while.

"_His hand… Oh God, I didn't mean to…"_

Sounds of Ichigo gagging at the sight of Uryuu's left arm (what's left of it), those thick, gasping, choking sounds, are still heavy on Uryuu's ears long after Ichigo himself is gone. Orihime had spent several long moments trying to make it clear to him that, no, he was not the one who had ripped Uryuu's hand off, that Ulquiorra had done that. Uryuu would have lifted his voice in reassurance as well, but he was still trying to adjust his brain to the revelation that he wouldn't be dying today, and that seemed more important at the time.

Uryuu wishes he had added his voice to the chorus then.

_Well, at least he was worried. _Shame prevents him from admitting it to anyone but himself, but some part of Uryuu was secretly gratified for even a fleeting moment of worry expressed over him. He shouldn't be so happy—if someone is worried about him, that means that they're in pain, and he shouldn't be even remotely glad that _they're _hurting. There's something else as well, a voice that tells Uryuu that he doesn't deserve to be worried about if his injuries are the result of his own stupidity in the first place, and that he might not deserve it even if they weren't. Still, the gladness remains, a parasitic worm burrowed deep within his heart.

The gladness didn't last for long. It left with Ichigo.

"_Kurosaki…" Uryuu hates the slur in his voice—it makes him sound like a child, someone not to be taken seriously—but doesn't let it stop him from speaking. There's something he has to say, badly, and he's not going to let anything stop him. "Can we talk for a moment?" he asks weakly._

_Ichigo, back turned to him, never meets his gaze. "No," he responds shortly. "I've gotta go help the others." He leaves without another word, not giving Uryuu the time needed to try to object._

_Uryuu can only stare at the empty spot where Ichigo was, unable—and unwilling—to identify the emotions welling up in his chest._

Uryuu doesn't know what Ichigo was expecting him to say.

Maybe he was expecting to be assaulted with accusations, to be told that he was at fault, and that he was not forgiven. Maybe Ichigo was afraid of that. Maybe he's afraid of being hated, of finding that he remains unforgiven, of seeing anger and betrayal in dark blue eyes. Uryuu can understand that fear. He's been afraid of similar things often enough in his life to know exactly how Ichigo feels, if that's the case.

Maybe Ichigo is afraid to be forgiven. Uryuu could read horror and shame and guilt in his body language before he left, however much Ichigo tried to hide it from him; Uryuu doesn't think he was misreading the signs Ichigo gave with his twitchy movements, furrowed brow, gesticulating hands and occasional flash in the eyes. Maybe he's afraid to be faced with forgiveness. This, Uryuu understands less than the thought that Ichigo might be running from the specter of implacable anger. _I would give anything to be absolved of the guilt assigned to me. Why run from the suspicion of it?_

_I wish I could have made him stay, even if only for a minute longer. I just wanted to say that it's alright. I know it wasn't him, I know he wasn't in his right mind, didn't know what he was doing, whatever. This is hardly the first time I've ever been hurt in a fight; I don't hold grudges over them. I just wanted to say that I'm not mad. I just wanted him to know that it's okay._

_I don't know that I would have said it quite like that. I never can make words come out the way I want them to, and if I was talking to Kurosaki, something tells me I wouldn't have been quite so baldly honest. I wouldn't have been able to stomach the emotions required to be that honest with anyone, let alone him. We both would have been absolutely mortified with the whole thing. Even so, I like to think I would have gotten it across somehow, if he'd just stuck around to listen._

He's the first friend Uryuu ever had. Uryuu's not going to throw something so important to him away over something that was clearly not Ichigo's fault.

If Ichigo had lingered, Uryuu would have tried to find some way to tell him that, no matter how awkward and forced it ended up sounding. That sort of guilt and fear should not be allowed to fester, no matter what the circumstances.

But no. Ichigo wasn't willing to stick around to hear what Uryuu had to say. He wouldn't even look at him. The whole time, the whole short time that Ichigo stayed up on the dome with Uryuu and Orihime, he didn't look at him once, and it was all Uryuu could do not to scream at Ichigo to just look him in the eye.

_Don't pretend I don't exist just because you're afraid of what I might say to you. Don't do that. Don't pretend I'm not here because you're afraid of what you might see in my face when you look at me. I've already had enough of that from others. Don't you do it to me too._

The barrier fluctuates for just a moment. The golden light drops for a moment, and Uryuu feels the cold of Hueco Mundo, the world of eternal night, pierce his bones before he is warm again. Uryuu looks over at Orihime, brows drawn up. She flashes a shaky smile at him, mouths '_Sorry'_, and can't make the smile reach her eyes, huge with worry and uncertainty. Uryuu likes to believe that her worry is expressed over him, but knows better. _She's still worried about Kurosaki. I suppose she should be; he's so reckless when he fights that any battle he gets involved in could be his last. Still…_

"Why…" Uryuu has to steel himself to the words, telling himself that he's not afraid of the answer Orihime might give "…why do you suppose Kurosaki didn't stick around longer?"

Orihime looks at him, startled. The expression on her face is both genuinely surprised and somewhat secretive, as though she knows something Uryuu doesn't. Then, she shrugs, hands shaking just a little bit. "He's worried about the others, that's all. Kurosaki-kun wanted to go help them."

Such an answer is inadequate, incomplete, and unsatisfying, but Uryuu doesn't inquire further, terrified of what honesty from Orihime might lead her to suggest.

_Will he never look at me again just because he's afraid of condemnation? Will he never be willing to talk to me because he fears what I might say? Will it always be like this?_

The idea that reality will be like this—Ichigo refusing to talk to Uryuu or even look at him—from now on is a reality that Uryuu doesn't want to live in. He's not naïve enough to believe that things won't be different from now on, but surely, eventually, Ichigo will overcome his fear long enough to let Uryuu talk to him. Surely.

He never quite manages to fully console himself with this thought, but for now, it's enough, and Uryuu settles back down to stare up at the golden light, and wait for his body to be made whole again.


	185. 185: Missing

**Title**: Missing**  
>AN**: And Ryuuken proceeds to have something of an epiphany. Whether or not it will stick is another matter entirely.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>The city has fallen silent and all of its inhabitants have drifted off to sleep. Among the sleepers are Kurosaki Karin and Kurosaki Yuzu, passed out on his living room couch, but Ryuuken was prepared for that by Urahara.<p>

"_The higher your reiatsu levels, the harder it will be for the spell to affect you. You probably won't fall asleep with the others; if you do, I doubt you'll be out for more than a few minutes."_

Urahara, it turned out, was telling the truth. When the incantation was first cast to put the city to sleep, Ryuuken felt drowsy for the first few minutes. It was an alarming sensation, to feel something massive bearing down on his consciousness, trying to force him into a sleeping state. He shook it off, glowering, and was glad when it was over and he could move without feeling like his legs were made of water.

Ryuuken has never heard such profound silence in his life. No voices, no sirens, no shriek of tires. No train whistles, no clock towers, no airplanes overhead. It's all just stopped. There isn't even the white noise buzz of overhead lights or the clang of the air conditioning turning on and off. The electricity went out at the same time that the city fell asleep, and Ryuuken supposes he should be grateful that it's still light outside. _I think I still have those candles; I can try to use them when it gets dark._

As he sits at the kitchen table, Ryuuken stares at a folded slip of paper sitting in front of him, but does not open it. For the moment, he can't make his hands move and open it, and his mind wanders to other things instead.

It hadn't occurred to him at first, but now, Ryuuken wonders what happened to the people riding in cars or buses or trains when they fell asleep. He reflects grimly that since it was the middle of the day when the spell was cast, the streets were packed and the trains were rolling. If the Shinigami weren't careful about this (and it's not like they have a track record for being especially careful, so Ryuuken isn't feeling optimistic about this), the streets downtown are likely now packed with smoking wreckage instead, and the trains have had horrific accidents.

_If they didn't arrange things to avoid that, and something tells me that this likely slipped their minds just as so many other things tend to, I don't like to think of what's happened now. How many wounded? How many dead? How many casualties because of the Shinigami's carelessness? Any claims they have ever made to be the champions of the living has just been killed… again._

For a long moment, Ryuuken has to fight the nearly overwhelming temptation to go out and try to give some aid to what could well be hundreds of casualties. There are only two things that keep him from doing so. One, is the thought that the Shinigami might have made arrangements after all, and that there might not be any casualties at all. Two, is that whether there are dozens upon dozens of car wrecks or not, Ryuuken promised to look after Karin and Yuzu and keep them from harm. The danger to them both is very real and if Ryuuken turns his attention from them for any length of time, they could both be killed.

_I should wait until everyone's woken up. Then, I'll have the support of others in trying to preserve the lives of the wounded. _Ryuuken thinks of those who could be dying right now, entangled in the mangled wreckage of their cars, and he goes a little cold. _Those who die will die. Those who do not, they are the ones I need to be worried about. For all I know, I could be the only human awake right now. I need to wait until there are others awake who can help me._

There's something happening somewhere outside. Ryuuken doesn't know where, and frankly doesn't care much what's going on so long as it doesn't happen anywhere near where he and the Kurosaki twins are, but he can feel the distant tremors of reiatsu clashing. There is the signature unique to Shinigami, and something else, something so alien that Ryuuken isn't entirely sure that it's reiatsu at all.

This alien signature feels very much like what Ryuuken would imagine a black hole to be like. It sucks everything nearby into itself, destroying whole planets within the gravity well. Eventually it will devour itself and collapse, but until then everyone waits with bated breath, praying it doesn't consume the whole universe before it can die.

Still, he doesn't care as long as it doesn't show any signs of approaching him, no matter how much he expects to be drawn within at any moment.

_Do they show any signs of waking? _Ryuuken glances over at Yuzu and Karin. No, they are still fast asleep on the couch, in perfect sitting positions if one discounts the fact that they're slumped over and Karin's head is lolled on her sister's shoulder. There's a textbook still lying open on the coffee table, a pencil dangling loosely from Yuzu's fingers. They are still locked in the most perfect, untroubled sleep; the tension and worry has completely slipped away from both of their faces. _I almost envy them their ignorance._

Drumming his fingers against the firm wood surface, Ryuuken wonders if these two girls will wake up orphans. He wonders if they'll wake up without a brother anymore. Somehow, the former thought bothers him far more than the latter. Ryuuken couldn't care less if Ichigo dies, so long as he gets his job done; he has a hard time seeing the boy as anything but one of Uryuu's most thoughtless friends. Isshin, on the other hand…

Thinking about Isshin dying in battle against rogue Shinigami or Arrancar bothers Ryuuken more than he would like to admit. Isshin has been a fixture in his life for decades now. They haven't always gotten along, and Isshin is in fact the very reason that Ryuuken has headaches as often as he does. But the thought of him dead is not one that gives Ryuuken joy. Quite the opposite.

_I suppose Masaki's kin would take in the children if he was to die; Isshin certainly doesn't know if he has any surviving descendants, and they wouldn't recognize him. At least I don't have to think of what would happen to his children._

_That I'm thinking about this at all is amazing. I never thought about Isshin dying before, though I suppose I should have. As a Shinigami when I first met him, he was never injured by Hollows; he always triumphed when he sought to purify them. As a human, he never put himself in harm's way in that manner. Isshin has always seemed invincible to me; I don't know why, he just has. But he can die. He can be killed. No one is immortal; no one is incapable of being killed. Isshin could very well die, and soon._

_I never thought that would bother me. I never thought._

It's then, head pounding again, that Ryuuken finally slides the folded paper Uryuu left behind towards him. He's trying to shake away thoughts of Isshin dying and the half-dead emotions that these thoughts evoke in him. Reading the paper certainly isn't going to take his mind away from death, but it will take his mind off of Isshin.

He's avoided reading Uryuu's note since he found it lying on a ledge in the chamber beneath the hospital. At first, Ryuuken told himself that whatever Uryuu had to say to him, it wouldn't be anything surprising. _But maybe_, he thinks tentatively, running his fingertips over the cool white paper, _maybe there will be something enlightening within._

The paper is unfolded and smoothed out meticulously, laid out flat on the table. Ryuuken adjusts his glasses as he squints in order to read Uryuu's hasty, unkempt scrawl. _He might have been panicked, but really, he ought to have taken the time to at least write neatly._

'_Have to help a friend. Don't know when I'll be back.'_

Ryuuken sighs and leans back in his chair. Of course. He should not have expected Uryuu to have written anything enlightening; if anything, he'd probably made his letter this vague on purpose so as to attempt to avoid incurring Ryuuken's wrath. Ryuuken should not have expected any more content than this.

_Will he come back? Will he ever come back?_

For some odd, unfathomable reason (_or maybe not so odd and unfathomable_), Ryuuken finds his mind turning to life insurance. His mother hadn't had it, nor had his wife; neither of them would have been able to afford it, and in the case of Sayuri Ryuuken doubts that she had ever been willing to devote a great deal of thought to the very real possibility of an early death. For all that she was just as immersed in death as any other Quincy, for all that she had watched every remaining member of her family die around her, Sayuri didn't like to think about the way death applied to her. In the end, her _"I won't let it happen to me too" _mentality served her ill.

On the other hand, Ryuuken does have life insurance. In the weeks following Sayuri's death, one of the first coherent things he did, other than going back to work, was take out a life insurance policy on himself. The reasons for that are quite simple. In the event that he died before Uryuu reached adulthood and, for whatever reason, the boy wasn't able to gain access to Ryuuken's savings, Uryuu wouldn't be stuck shouldering the cost of his funeral and that, when it was all over, he might have some money left over for college.

(On that note, if and when Uryuu returns from Hueco Mundo, Ryuuken is going to have to talk to him to make sure that he does plan on attending college. It doesn't matter how bright the boy is; in this economy the only way Uryuu will ever be able to earn a decent living is if he has a college degree. Such a conversation might be unpleasant, but is wholly necessary.)

Ryuuken doesn't know why he's thinking about this now, except that, the way things are going, it may be that very soon, Uryuu will not be alive to ever do any of these things.

_Back to death again. _Ryuuken doesn't like to think of the implications of Uryuu dying, but once his mind is on the subject, he no longer has any other choice but to explore his jumbled thoughts to make sense of the mess.

Uryuu has gone to a world of Hollows, and there has been no word of him or from him since he left. Ryuuken doubts that anyone would have time to track him down and tell him if there was any word on Uryuu's status, but the silence still leads him to speculation, and all that speculation points towards Uryuu having died, horribly.

When he hears reports of disappearances over the radio or reads about them in the newspaper, Ryuuken's first thought is always that they are dead. He does not give countenance to the possibility that the missing might be found alive, and no matter how many times he hears that the missing have been found and that they are either perfectly alright or at least alive, Ryuuken remembers all the other time that bodies were found instead of living forms. _A Hollow can make you disappear without a trace; a Shinigami can do the same. And even discounting these factors, there are still places on this Earth where bodies can be hidden and never found again._

Uryuu is missing. Oh yes, technically Ryuuken knows where he is, but he has had no word from Uryuu and has no way of contacting him, so in his eyes, Uryuu may as well be missing. If Uryuu is missing, than that means there is a high likelihood that he is dead. Ryuuken can't make himself think differently just because Uryuu is the one missing.

_He could die. He could be dead right now._

Death. With Uryuu's, there will be a new voice added to the clamoring of ghosts in Ryuuken's head when there is nothing to occupy his thoughts. Another memory, another ghost, clinging to his skin, refusing to let go, something new to dog his steps and keep him from sleep. _He'll be dead, and I'll never be able to forget that he was once here. I'll always hear him walking two steps behind, I'll always think I can catch the flash of his eyes, and I'll always remember, no matter how much I try to forget._

_But he'll be dead. And no matter how much my mind tries to trick me, I'll never see him again._

To be entirely honest, Ryuuken doesn't know what he would do if Uryuu was to die. He doesn't know what he would do if Uryuu died, if he would go on. _How would I go about things? Would I try to get a death certificate? Would I have him declared dead? Would I just maintain for the rest of my life that, until I see a body, I don't believe that he's dead? Or would I do none of that, and just pretend that Uryuu never existed?_

Ryuuken stares off into space as he thinks of the room Uryuu left behind when he fled this place, already shut up against the world. In the event of Uryuu's death, that room would become his tomb, the only tomb Ryuuken would ever be able to see as Uryuu's. He never goes inside, not for anything, but if Uryuu died, if it was to be that he would never live in this house again or would never send for his things, Ryuuken thinks he would have the door boarded up, so that the room would be just a lost thing for the rest of time.

Maybe it would become something else. Maybe, instead of boarding up the room, if Uryuu dies, Ryuuken will open the doors again, and be willing to step inside. Maybe, when he's consumed with thoughts and unable to shake off the past to see the present, Ryuuken will sit on the twin bed with its pale blue sheets and look at a room that looks more like a museum exhibit than a child's bedroom, and this will be what he does instead of staring at a photograph like he normally does when lost in thought. _I think this really is what I would do instead._

_He left, gone to another world. He could die, and all the notice he gave was this note. _Ryuuken reaches forward for the discarded note. He takes it in his numb hands, and, quite deliberately, tears the paper into a thousand curled-up pieces, so small that he can no longer make out the characters that were scribbled upon it. The paper looks like glass shards, but flimsier, and Ryuuken almost expects to see blood dripping from the ends. His blood, he supposes it would be.

_He could die there, and there would be nothing I could do. Oh yes, it would certainly be his own foolishness that got him killed, because it's his foolishness, his weakness that lead him to run to Hueco Mundo in the first place. But he would die, dead in a Hollow's maw or on a sword. Dead, that's what he would be. Gone, never to be seen again._

_I take no joy in this thought, no matter what anyone might insinuate. I take no joy in it. There are already so many ghosts, and to think that he will become another one?_

One more shadow. That's all Uryuu will be anymore, if he doesn't come back. Ryuuken squeezes his eyes tightly shut. He knows in his heart that the missing rarely return, but, insanely, he finds himself hoping that Uryuu will come back.

He doesn't think he can take another shadow.


	186. 186: Relief

**Title**: Relief**  
>AN**: Again with the weird emotions and disjointed observations.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>Some time later, days on or maybe merely hours, the sun is starting to sink behind the buildings of Karakura Town, painting the rooftops red, and Ryuuken is still sitting at his kitchen table, ears pierced by the sheer silence that comes from the inaction of every living thing around him.<p>

Ryuuken wonders if he should eat, even though there is within him no appetite for food. As he thinks this over, Ryuuken reflects that the power being out means that the power in the refrigerator has been cut as well, and that he likely should not open the door to keep the cool air from escaping. He does keep crackers and bottled water in one of the cabinets in case of emergencies such as this; he could use that in lieu of a meal, if it comes to that.

_But why do I think of food at all, if I am not hungry?_

Rarely does Ryuuken have an appetite, something he suspects to be a leftover from a childhood of having no idea when he would eat his next meal, or if he would have a "next meal" at all. He eventually became so used to being hungry all the time that Ryuuken eventually learned to at least try to ignore it; the result of that is that he still ignores any pangs of appetite even when he has the money to buy food. Normally, he doesn't think he would be able to distinguish between the presence and the absence of an appetite, and even if he did, when he concentrates on other things consideration of hunger tends to fly straight out the window, but right now, Ryuuken knows he's not hungry, and yet he still thinks of food.

It's probably just his mind trying to keep away from topics that will make it unravel. Food is mundane, normal, safe; anything else leads to the things Ryuuken can't bear to contemplate.

His eyes stray to the couch in the living room again. Karin and Yuzu show no signs of waking, still. Ryuuken supposes this to be a good thing. He has no idea how he would explain the fact that apparently nearly everyone in the whole city has fallen asleep and nothing powered by electricity is working. More disturbing still to them would be the fact that they both fell asleep in the middle of the day and at the same time in the house of a strange man; Ryuuken doesn't think he could explain that to them in a way that wouldn't end with at least one of the twins screaming for the police.

_No good deed goes unpunished. This good deed might land me in prison if the timing's off. Isshin had better come back soon enough to keep them from panicking._

If Isshin comes back at all, that is.

Then, suddenly, from somewhere out in the city, there comes again a disturbance.

This is a different sort of disturbance from the alien reiatsu Ryuuken felt before. Instead, what he senses is something quite familiar to him. This, Ryuuken recognizes as the disturbance felt whenever the veil between the worlds is torn open to allow travelers through.

He stiffens, and frowns. _Someone's coming through… Could it be him?_

Ryuuken stretches his awareness out towards the source of the disturbance. There are several people arriving, some with the signature of Shinigami, others with the aura of spiritually sensitive humans, and…

_Yes. He's there as well. _Uryuu is with them.

Immediately, Ryuuken homes in on the familiar signature of another Quincy, very much human but at the same time somewhat different from those of the other humans in the group. That Uryuu is here, by itself, means nothing. _Is he—_

_Yes, he is. _The mortal bonds have not been cut. _He's still alive. _Uryuu is alive, and it seems that he is uninjured as well. Present is the slump of exhaustion that makes his signature droop, but there are none of the gouges that would be there if he was badly hurt. At worst, Uryuu has come home dead on his feet from exhaustion with cuts and bruises, but he has come home, and he has done so alive.

Ryuuken slumps in his chair, hand curled over his mouth, letting go of the knot of tension he didn't even know was there. Numbness creeps up his fingertips until, all over, he feels as though his bones are made of lead and he can not move an inch. The frenzied progress of his blood grinds to a halt; the lungs stop drinking in air, and the heart, for just one moment, goes entirely still.

Not once does Ryuuken ever contemplate jumping up from the kitchen table, tracking down the caught stream of Uryuu's reiatsu to its source, and seeing with his own eyes that the boy is alive and still whole. Ryuuken trusts his senses, trusts his ability to gauge the situation of the one he is focused on. There's also the matter of Karin and Yuzu, still out cold; what if they were to awaken while he was gone? And until Isshin comes to collect his daughters, Ryuuken has to assume that the danger has not yet passed.

No. Ryuuken will not go running looking for his wayward son like a man come unhinged. He will wait, and he will think.

All efforts to think in a rational manner are abandoned before they can even be born. Ryuuken's thoughts instead swing back and forth, up and down constantly like two children on a seesaw. Amidst the chaos, his mind keeps coming back to the same thing, that he never seriously thought that Uryuu would come back alive.

And still, he has.

_I gave him up for dead before I could receive any news on his situation. Given where Uryuu had gone and his own nature, it was so unlikely that he wouldn't be killed that I simply decided to operate as though he was dead or about to die. That was easier than hoping that he would live—hope so often betrays the one who hopes that it can no longer be trusted. _Ryuuken ignores the fact that he earlier gave the silent hope that Uryuu could return from Hueco Mundo. _But he has come back._

His heart jolts back into life, hammering out of rhythm, making breath catch heavily in his throat like smoke. _He comes back. He's still alive. I never would have—_

Ryuuken doesn't know how Uryuu survived Hueco Mundo. Perhaps this time, he was surrounded by people who actually concerned themselves with his wellbeing in battle. Perhaps Uryuu's friends were more considerate of him this time around. Perhaps the only opponents Uryuu faced were such weaklings that they would not have posed a threat to even the greenest of foes; perhaps Uryuu was able to avoid battle altogether.

Or maybe, just maybe, Uryuu was able to get by on his own strength.

_Unlikely. _The fog dispelled, Ryuuken snorts derisively at the thought of Uryuu being able to hold his own against opponents of any real strength. Yes, in the month in which Ryuuken acted as Uryuu's teacher, the boy's skills improved, somewhat. However, that doesn't change the fact that Uryuu was still no match for a fully formed Arrancar, either in raw power, in skill, or in mentality. If he was to fight one Uryuu likely would either go too easy on the creature or not make certain that it was dead, or something foolish like that.

_Fools have the best luck, and Uryuu is _such _a fool. I ought not to have been worried._

Rubbing his forehead and feeling yet another headache start to creak and groan into life, Ryuuken tells himself that he ought to be angry with Uryuu, not disentangling himself from a tangled skein of emotions. Uryuu walked out on a training session the way a student would skip school, running out from under the teacher's nose, and though he knew he was going to a place where he could die, he left only a brief, badly written note as notice.

More seriously, Uryuu violated the terms of the promise he made with Ryuuken. _I gave him his powers back and started to teach him how to use them. In return, Uryuu was never again to have contact with the Shinigami or any of their associates. I kept my end of the bargain, but he did not keep his._

_Uryuu… _Ryuuken scowls in frustration. _Is he utterly incapable of keeping his word? Is he? Or is disobedience some sort of energy source for Uryuu? If he really was lonely, he ought to have made new acquaintances, people unconnected to the Shinigami. To go running off after a girl to a place like Hueco Mundo, where he could have been killed, and for someone he had forsworn contact with, this is not the behavior of an adult, or of someone who can be trusted to keep his word._

These issues demand redress and there will be confrontation; Ryuuken is not the sort of man to let such things slide, not often. Uryuu must understand that his actions have consequences and that so too do the breaking of promises. However, Ryuuken can not at the moment summon anger as cold and hard as it ought to be. Instead, all he can think is _At least he's still alive_, replaying the line over and over again like a broken record.

There's no room for another shadow to trail Ryuuken's steps. He has too many already; one more would ruin him for good. One more shadow would finally turn him into what's been lurking at the musty edges of consciousness for years now, a silent, empty shell of a man who moves and breathes mechanically like a wind-up toy. Not even that, anymore; he'd be like a wind-up toy that had ground to a halt and no one ever cared to wind up again. Just standing there, rusting and gathering dust, forgotten in a musty corner, never changing as the world moved on without him. One more shadow would have been all it took.

There's also that uncomfortable reality that Ryuuken has never acknowledged before, but can't deny anymore. Uryuu's undeniable resemblance to Sayuri has been a source of discomfort, of pain, of trouble to Ryuuken since the day that she died. What has resulted from that has only been a source of even greater trouble for them both. The points of resemblance between mother and child have brought no one involved in the affair anything but grief, and there have been days, many days, when Ryuuken wishes he couldn't see it, but that's just the thing.

Uryuu is all that is left of her, all that is left of the dead people who, when living, were Ryuuken's family. When Uryuu is alive Ryuuken can tell himself that it was real, that he really had a family once, really was married once, that once upon a time, there were more members of this family alive in the world than Ryuuken and Uryuu. If Uryuu is dead, if he is gone and Ryuuken really is the last, then there is nothing to anchor his memories to reality. If Uryuu dies, then Ryuuken starts to wonder how much of it was really real after all, even if people like Isshin or Urahara reassure him that it has all been real. Ryuuken needs Uryuu to be alive to know that he had parents and a wife and that all of this, seeing ghosts and Hollows and having the powers to fight them, has been real. No one else will suffice.

_The world of the dead has never been a welcome presence in my life, but it has been just that: a presence. I've built my whole life around the way I react to it, and without Uryuu alive, the last real link I have to the private world that I and my kin inhabited, I would never be able to believe that it was all real. I hate to admit that my reality was constructed to be one that would only fit if there was someone else like me in it, but that is the truth of it. If Uryuu dies, everything else here dies as well._

Anger is not beyond recall. Ryuuken supposes he is angry at Uryuu, both for breaking his word and for being so foolish as to risk his life by going to a place such as Hueco Mundo. But for right now, all he can think is _At least he's still alive, _and anger takes second place to that.


	187. 187: Collect

**Title**: Collect**  
>AN**: The beginning of the end.  
><strong>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>When Isshin comes, it's the car pulling up in the driveway that Ryuuken hears rather than picking up on the red strands of Shinigami reiatsu. Perhaps that's because when Isshin knocks on the door and Ryuuken opens it, he's dressed as he normally has been for the past decades he's spent as a human: that is to say, loud Hawaiian shirt and jeans. That he's not here as a Shinigami can only lead Ryuuken to think that everything is, at last, over.<p>

"Thanks for the help, man," Isshin mutters, shifting the weight of his elder daughter in his arms. "I can't believe they're both still out of it; about half the city's already started waking up."

Given how quiet it still is outside, Ryuuken has a hard time believing that people have "started waking up", but considering the electricity's working again, he supposes that things probably have started to get back to normal. "Are you _sure _this doesn't count as gaslighting?" he asks skeptically, as Yuzu's brown hair tickles his cheek.

Isshin shakes his head vigorously. "Uh-uh. If they didn't wake up until I got them home and proceeded to pretend that nothing had happened and "No, no, you never went to Ishida-san's house, and you certainly didn't fall asleep in the middle of the day; maybe you should sit down—" Isshin here affects a mock-concerned tone of voice that makes Ryuuken's lip twitch "—_that _would be gaslighting. I'd be a sick, sick bastard too, 'cause that stuff's messed up."

"So you don't consider this questionable in any way?" Ryuuken squints as he steps out of his front door and is met by the early morning sunlight.

The night seemed to last an eternity with no word from anyone. Ryuuken saw not Urahara, nor Isshin, nor even the elusive Yoruichi—he supposes he should not have expected any sighting of the latter. There was just silence, and the lights coming back on at about three, and no sleep to be found for Ryuuken. Ryuuken stayed awake, watching for any signs of stirring in the girls, and wondering when word would come.

To this, the Shinigami glares. He struggles to dig out his car keys without dropping Karin in the process. Ryuuken waits patiently, Yuzu seeming to grow heavier in his arms with each passing moment. "Look. When they wake up, I'll tell them what's going on, at least as much as I can manage—Damn, where are those keys?" Isshin growls. Ryuuken frowns; Isshin's temper seems a little short this morning.

Isshin rifles around in his pockets for a few more moments, at one point even laying Karin down on the dewy grass, until both his and Ryuuken's eyes fall on the keys, still in the ignition. Isshin swears under his breath again, showing his still-fraying temper.

For himself, Ryuuken opens the door on his side of the car. "Were there any car wrecks?"

"What?"

"Car wrecks, Isshin. Were there any when the city fell asleep?"

"Oh. That." Isshin swallows a bit, discomfort creeping up on his face like twenty years of age. "Yeah, there were."

_I should have known they wouldn't remember. _Ryuuken's face hardens. "How many?" he asks tightly. _I'm going to have to go into work soon to help._

Setting Karin down in the car, Isshin doesn't meet Ryuuken's stony gaze. "A lot. Not as many as there could have been, though."

"And casualties?"

"A couple killed, but most of them weren't fatally wounded. Something to be thankful for, I guess," Isshin remarks vaguely, still not looking at Ryuuken.

Ryuuken sets Yuzu down in a car seat beside her sister and starts the process of pulling the seatbelt across her torso. It's not easy to do this for another person, Ryuuken reflects; it's been so many years since Uryuu was young enough that Ryuuken had to buckle the seatbelt for him that…

Thoughts cease to flow in that direction when Ryuuken realizes what it's bringing him to. He sets his jaw, pulls the buckle of the seatbelt to its slot, and straightens, wondering to himself if he has enough time to shower and change his clothes before heading off to work.

Ryuuken does not ask Isshin about Uryuu, though he reflects that Isshin is more likely to know about the boy's current status than anyone else he'll interact with today. If he wants to know what sort of condition Uryuu is in, he'll see to the information himself. Besides, if he displays anything resembling worry over his son, Isshin will never let him live it down. Ryuuken will probably hear Isshin saying "I told you so" over and over again until the day he dies. That would be completely unacceptable.

"Well, we won." Ryuuken's eyes shoot up, not because Isshin has spoken, but because of the tone of voice he uses. Isshin is fumbling with the seatbelt to buckle Karin in; there's a quality to his voice that indicates that there is something imperfect about victory. "Aizen Sousuke is no longer a threat to anybody, unless he busts out of jail."

Keen brown eyes narrow as Isshin finally gets the seatbelt buckled. Despite the fact that he's done, and by all rights should start the process of driving away, he does not stand. Instead, Isshin remains crouching, staring heavily at each of his daughters like he never wants to tear his gaze away.

_You don't sound like a man who's won a war. _Then, Ryuuken remembers all of the plans the Shinigami had for Ichigo, and he starts to wonder exactly what's happened to the boy. "What's happened?" he asks quietly.

Isshin slams the car door shut; Ryuuken does the same on his end. "Ask me some other time," he sighs, before getting into the driver's seat and driving away down a deserted road.


	188. 188: Bedlam

**Title**: Bedlam**  
>AN**: Not much to say here.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>The local government has already scrambled to give an explanation for why the entire population of a city so large as Karakura Town suddenly fell asleep en masse. A gas leak of some sort, they're claiming, caused the city to lose consciousness. Ryuuken didn't hear the whole report, though it's playing on literally every television in the hospital. He doesn't know if anyone's managed to explain why no one outside of the borders of Karakura Town was also knocked unconscious, or why a gas that could knock tens of thousands of people unconscious did not have any other adverse effects.<p>

Personally, Ryuuken doesn't care how the government is trying to explain the fact that every single resident of Karakura Town collapsed unconscious for at least several hours recently. _He _knows how it happened, and at the moment, Ryuuken has bigger things to worry about.

There are of course, the injured present from all of the car wrecks that happened when drivers fell asleep at the wheel. Isshin, it turns out, was right. There were a few dead, but mostly the victims were injured and not killed; in fact, the fatalities mostly came from those who had been in swimming pools at the time. Mercifully, none of the trains had any issues; it seems they ground to a halt after everyone fell asleep. That's cold comfort to the woman being wheeled past in a neck brace, though.

In addition to those who were injured in traffic accidents, there are others here. There were a few who were boiling water when the spell was cast and fell face first into the pots. Others had to take medications but weren't conscious to do so, and are now suffering the ill effects. Still more were apparently conducting some sort of hazardous activity (other than boiling water) when they were rendered unconscious and suffered injuries as a result.

To put it plainly, the hospitals of Karakura Town are packed; Ryuuken is sure Isshin's clinic is overflowing as well. Mercifully, the influx of patients needing immediate attention began to slack off about an hour ago. Ryuuken dares to hope that it will continue to slack off as the day wears on, that this is as bad as it will be, that the wounded already under his care will not deteriorate any further. It's only 11:04. Ryuuken doesn't think he can take another eight hours of this.

Legs feeling like the muscles have turned to water and the bones to jelly, Ryuuken slumps into a chair out in one of the hallways, desperate for a moment of rest. If he had remembered to bring cigarettes with him to work today, Ryuuken would probably go outside to smoke and try to take the edge off. _It's probably just as well. I need to be somewhere people can find me._

Those who were in danger of dying upon arrival have been taken care of; so to have the seriously injured and the badly ill. Now, as Ryuuken sits in the hard-backed chair and watches the other staff, doctors, nurses, janitorial staff and the like, scurry past like frenzied ants, he starts to think. Jarring noise and vibrations grow distant and far-away. He's sure that someone will come looking for him very soon, but for now, Ryuuken lets his heartbeat even out to something resembling normal, and he starts to wonder.

Personally, Ryuuken is surprised that no one's come forward to say that they woke up long before the majority of the city, or that they never fell asleep to begin with. Urahara had said that the spell would have a more difficult time putting to sleep and keeping asleep those with decent levels of spiritual energy. Ryuuken knows that Karakura Town has a tendency to produce a higher number of spiritually sensitive individuals than what can be considered normal. Surely he wasn't the only one awake during all of this?

_Then again, Karin has high levels of spiritual energy, and she never showed any signs of stirring during the spell's duration. Perhaps reiatsu isn't as reliable a gauge in this situation as Urahara-san implied. Or perhaps_—Ryuuken grimaces—_anyone who did wake up or never fell asleep is just afraid to come forward._

Despite the uproar gripping the city, despite the fact that the streets are littered with wreckage, and despite the fact that there have been fire, police, and tow trucks out in force since just after dawn, the schools are still running. Every student, from kindergarten all the way up to the twelfth grade is, barring illness or injury, expected to be present in class today.

_The schools will still be running after the world drowns in fire_, Ryuuken muses with a wry smirk. At least some things never change. That smirk slips away as he continues thinking.

Uryuu is likely in school today if he was unable to please illness as a reason to stay home; for injuries, nothing short of life-threatening would be an acceptable excuse, and the last time Ryuuken checked, Uryuu was not in any danger of dying. Given what the recent past has been for him, going back to school must seem so mundane.

_Compared to fighting for his life against Arrancar and trying to free an imprisoned friend, history class and gym must seem so very tame. How does one go back to a normal life after such excursions?_

Ryuuken spares a glance for the clock on the wall above him and sighs. Uryuu won't be out of school for hours yet, and Ryuuken's shift won't end until several hours after that. Though he did not sense anything seriously wrong with Uryuu over a distance, Ryuuken is no longer content with that. He wants to see with his own eyes that Uryuu really isn't dead or injured. He's not going to have the opportunity to do that until this evening, and… _I don't think I've ever wanted to see him so badly before._

"Sir?"

Everything is brought back into sharp focus with a single word and a tap on the shoulder. The cacophony of hustle and bustle and the wail of sirens outside crashes on Ryuuken's ears. Ryuuken looks up tiredly to see Junko leaning over him. Her wide brown eyes are slightly bloodshot and rimmed scarlet; her face is strained and pale. "Yes, Sasaki-san?" Ryuuken asks wearily.

"You're wanted, sir."

"Alright." He stands, wincing at the ache of his limbs. "Lead the way."

And so he delves into the bedlam again.


	189. 189: Weak

**Title**: Weak**  
>AN**: Hello again. I hope this seems realistic to you all.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>School was quiet today, uneventful despite everything that's happened. There were far more empty desks than usual, but it seems likely that they will be filled again soon. Half of the teachers were gone as well; those students who found themselves without instructors simply filed into other classrooms, soon solving the problem of the empty desks. Needless to say, all of Uryuu's classes were quite cramped today.<p>

Apart from the numerous absences, everything was perfectly normal today. There were no disturbances, no unusual happenings, not even a fight in the dusty courtyard. A math quiz was canceled due to extenuating circumstances, but other than that, it was as normal a school day as Uryuu has ever experienced.

He doesn't know how much longer he'll be able to survive such alien normality.

The sun is setting over the hills and the vast waters. The sky is stained red and painted delicate shades of yellow and pink and lavender, and outside of all of that, there is a deep blue haze of night starting to steal away the daylight. So brightly burning is the fire of the dying sun that as it sinks below the horizon, one could almost think it plans on devouring the Earth before it dies. Shadows veil the streets and the alleyways; though Uryuu is aware of the sun, he hasn't felt its touch on his skin for more than a half-hour. He pulls his jacket closer about his chest. _Was it this cold when I left?_

In the end, it ended up taking about twenty-four hours to get in and out of Hueco Mundo with Orihime and company in tow. _A day? _Uryuu wonders, adjusting the strap of his bag mechanically. _Was it really just a day? It felt more like an eternity, or three years at least. I feel like I spent a lifetime there._

It may as well have been a lifetime lost on Hueco Mundo, for how long ago it feels like since Uryuu left. So much has happened, so much has changed, that he's not entirely sure that time is working right anymore at all.

_The war's over. How can you even call it a war if it lasted less than a day? I suppose I should be glad the living world's no longer in danger from the Arrancar, but none of this seems real anymore._

_It doesn't feel like I spent just a day there. I've gotten so used to white-washed walls that all of these colors seem too bright, jarring, artificial. This all seems like a world of artifice, not that Las Noches was any better. Las Noches attempted to give some semblance of civilization to the wilderness of Hueco Mundo, but couldn't hide the savagery inherent in its people. _

Uryuu's eyes scan the brick walls of the buildings and alleyways whose shadows he skirts. There are gouges in the brick, graffiti painted black and bold, and he remembers the stark, ascetic walls of the citadel of Las Noches. Human cities try to mask the innate savagery of the peoples inhabiting them as well. The only differences between this place and Las Noches is that most humans don't try to eat each other and Las Noches was better at hiding the insanity, until you met the inhabitants.

School was uneventful, and that's what made it so awful. Uryuu took notes all day, listening to the droning of his teacher. Despite the fact that the class was crowded with next door's currently teacher-less students, everything was orderly and silent, students taking notes while sitting in desks or crouched on the floor. Business and usual, and during all that time, Uryuu was expecting a Hollow to jump out and attack him at any moment.

_There are no Hollows here, _Uryuu had to admonish himself, while holding his pencil so tightly in bony fingers that it came close to splintering. _There are no Arrancar. No one will attack me here. If there was a threat coming, I would sense it. There's nothing near the school, not an Arrancar, nor a rogue Shinigami, nor even a normal Hollow; there aren't nearly as many of those as usual. There is nothing and no one here who will try to hurt me. _These thoughts he repeated to himself over and over again like a broken record, but still, the tension was there, stiff in his shoulders, making his ears unnaturally keen and his eyes sharp as jagged glass.

Once, there was a time when, after a night of hunting Hollows, Uryuu was grateful for the stability a day at school could provide. With the frenzy over and his life no longer in immediate peril, the normality of sitting down in a desk and taking a quiz with twenty other students was oddly soothing; it at least provided Uryuu with something of a link to the normal world. Now, when he sits at the desk and writes out characters onto crisp sheets of paper, Uryuu does not feel peace. He feels as though he is in a room in a funhouse where the walls are growing closer with each passing moment. He feels as though the danger has not yet passed.

_Is this how it's going to be from now on? At least at school I could feel like something resembling normal. Is it going to be that, even here, there's no sanctuary? None at all? _Uryuu can only pray that this is an aftereffect of his experiences in Las Noches. He can only pray that it will go away.

Ichigo is still out cold. Uryuu doesn't know when he'll be awake, or if he'll be awake. He had come back to his apartment as dawn was splitting the night sky in two to change his clothes and head off to school, and Ichigo had still been unconscious. Checking again after school, Uryuu found no change. _When is he going to wake up? Is he going to be alright? _

Existing as a shadow on the edge of his awareness is the thought that Ichigo might not wake up at all. That he might stay like this forever, that he might simply die without ever opening his eyes again, makes Uryuu's stomach twist itself into knots. He finds that, more than anything, he just wants Ichigo to wake up.

_He doesn't look right. He looks… flat, like he's made of paper. I just want him to wake up again. Even if it's just bickering and arguments between us, I want him to wake up._

Orihime sat in the desk to Uryuu's immediate left today. She kept her eyes on her paper the whole time, only looking up to glance at the blackboard to see what the teacher was writing. Uryuu tried desperately to catch her gaze and failed, a long curtain of scarlet hair shielding her face from view. When the bell rang for lunch, Uryuu almost went up to speak to her, but stopped when he saw that she was surrounded by the group of girls that she had so often spent time with before this… before this all started.

_She must be worried about Kurosaki. _Orihime showed a pale face from lack of sleep and bloodshot, shadowed eyes. Her smiles were half-dead and she seemed just as tense and anxious as Uryuu felt. With attempts at a reassuring tone of voice, she told everyone that she was fine, but with everything that's happened, Uryuu has such a hard time believing that. _I always try to behave as though nothing's wrong even when everything's wrong. She's always used smiles to hide when things are wrong. Why should now be any different?_

_If I can't talk to her, I'll just have to take her word for it until I can. Just because I never… Just because I never got over everything that happened so long ago doesn't mean she can't get over her own issues. Still…_

_Why does it all have to be like this?_

Uryuu turns a corner on the sidewalk and nearly feels his heart fail him when he narrowly avoids colliding with a pedestrian walking in the opposite direction. "I'm… I'm sorry," he stammers, eyes wild and hands shaking slightly. "I didn't see you…"

As Uryuu registers the appearance of the other pedestrian and feels a familiar signature, he trails off, and for one moment, it really does feel as though his heart has stopped.

_What is he doing here?_

Uryuu notes dimly that Ryuuken looks as tired as he does, face stretched, eyes red, but that observation quickly slips away in light of the pins and needles anxiety that he's here at all, standing right in front of him.

_He must have gone looking for me at my apartment. The hospital isn't in the direction he was coming from; the old house isn't either. I suppose it could have been something else, but the timing is too much of a coincidence. He must have been looking for me. He must have._

That realization fills Uryuu with dread as he remembers the promise he had made, and later broken. Ryuuken has never reacted well to Uryuu going against his will; in childhood, any disobedience was met with chilly anger and cold chastisement. He can't be happy about what Uryuu has done, can't be any happier about this than he was when Uryuu would still sneak off to go see his grandfather despite having been told not to.

Worse still is the situation unfolding now, since Uryuu gave his word of his own free will. Ryuuken is a man of his word. If nothing else can be said of him, it can at least be said that once given, he keeps his word, no matter the circumstances. Ryuuken has little understanding for Uryuu even at the best of times. What little understanding he does have is likely to have been eroded by Uryuu having broken the promise he made to him more than a month ago.

_I had to go. I had to help Inoue-san. I couldn't just leave her there without knowing that she was safe. _Even to his own ears those protests sound weak, and Uryuu knows Ryuuken won't be understanding. To this, he will say that there were others going after Orihime and that, even if they weren't, Uryuu had sworn to forgo further contact with the Shinigami and those affiliated with them. He cares nothing for loopholes or worry or desperation; Uryuu can almost laugh bitterly at the thought of how Ryuuken would react to an explanation of the logic that let Uryuu leave. All Ryuuken will see is that Uryuu has broken his word, and to him, there are no circumstances that could excuse that.

Uryuu's face burns with unwilling shame—_I shouldn't feel shame at having helped my friends_—as he stares Ryuuken down in the shadowy dusk, unwilling to tear his gaze from him for even one moment for fear of attack. He's waiting to be berated or shouted at, even though Uryuu can count on one hand the number of times he's ever heard Ryuuken raise his voice in anger; anything would be better than this intolerable _silence. _

Ryuuken does not speak a word, and there's not even the squeal of tires against asphalt or the static of a television in one of the buildings overhead to break the silence.

_Get it over with. Just get it over with. I don't want to spend the next months waiting for your anger. If you are going to condemn me for my choices, just do it now and be done with it._

In the way of accusations, nothing ever comes.

For a moment, Ryuuken opens his mouth as if to speak, but nothing comes. There is one small, choked sound, but nothing of words. His face looks strangely crumpled, like paper that's been balled up and unfolded without care. Uryuu again takes in the sight of his bloodshot eyes and crumpled shirt collar, and wonders with a pang when he last slept.

Some strange, alien emotion flits over Ryuuken's face for just a moment before disappearing beneath the stretched canvas of tired skin. _What is this? _Uryuu wonders numbly. _I've never seen that there before. _With an air of pervasive discomfort, Ryuuken lifts a hand and awkwardly rests it on Uryuu's shoulder, pulling his lip back in a grimace before letting go. _Like he's trying to make sure I'm really here._

Uryuu waits for the other shoe to drop, for the façade of this odd display to dissolve to reveal the familiarity of anger. Ryuuken does not allow anything to blunt the edge of his ire; to him, anger is to be kept as keen as a fresh razor or a sword used to kill. Uryuu doubts either that Ryuuken has any qualms about calling him out in public, unless he considers the ramifications of talking about Hollows and Shinigami in front of an audience. Whatever that odd moment was, it can't possibly blunt the anger that must be there.

He waits—_I just want it to be over; why are you taking so long?_—and still Ryuuken says nothing, just staring at him with his mouth slightly open and the beginnings of emotion starting to burn and make the edges of his paper mask shrivel up and curl.

Finally, Uryuu realizes that Ryuuken isn't going to say anything. Ryuuken doesn't know what to say any more than Uryuu does. There's no anger, at least not right now, and even recognizing that Ryuuken's sure to call foul on his actions eventually, all Uryuu can think is _He's not angry _with numb surprise. Instead of being angry, Ryuuken looks like a man fishing for words, and never quite finding what to say.

_I don't think I've ever seen him look at me like that before._

Recognizing this to be probably the weakest he's ever seen him, Uryuu doesn't try to talk. Instead, Uryuu manages a small, lopsided smile for his father, but when he steps past him and continues on towards home, he somehow feels even heavier than before.


	190. 190: Key

**Title**: Key**  
>AN**: I thought running into Daisuke again would be fitting.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>By the time Uryuu makes it home, the street lamps have lit in order to give proper lighting to any pedestrian trying to make their way home; the sky above has rid itself of any warm colors and instead boasts only blue and purple like skin at the worst stage of bruising. Considering the blotchy contusions beneath his shirt, Uryuu can only think that this is fitting, even if he'd rather there wasn't something else to remind him of how much his ribs ache when he walks.<p>

The apartment complex comes into sight, and Uryuu stops, and looks at it, really looks at it, for the first time since he returned from Hueco Mundo.

Apartment 1113 has been Uryuu's home for more than two years now, and he has walked to and from this building to get to school, the grocery store, and everywhere else for more than two years. The slightly rundown building, with its peeling plaster walls and heavy doors take an extra shove to close, is not the most desirable apartment complex in the world. True, it's not horrible—Uryuu has seen plenty worse. It can even be considered decent, to those who can stand cramped quarters, but all the same, this particular housing complex is the province of those without the income to afford houses, or for that matter, better apartments.

All the same, despite its shortcomings and the fact that it serves to remind Uryuu, every day, that he's one missed bill payment away from homelessness, it is home. The old house, big and spacious as it was, was simply too big, too saturated with a noxious stew of memories and bile, to ever be a home. Grandfather's house isn't a home without him in it; without him, it's just a collection of dilapidated wood and mildewed furniture. There is nowhere else, so this is home instead.

_But when did I start calling it home? _

Yes, Uryuu has referred to this place as "home" before. That's how everyone terms the place they sleep at night, he supposes. However, he did so before in a way that had no heart; Uryuu only referred to the apartment as home out of expediency. It was easier to say and think "I'm going home" instead of "I'm going back to the apartment." Now? Now, Uryuu looks at the building that's become so familiar to him over the past two years, and when he calls it "home", he finds he really means that.

_When did I start calling anywhere home, let alone here? Did it just become home while I was away? Did it just become home while there was a chance I'd never see it again?_

A stiff, chilly wind cleaves straight through Uryuu's ribs and he winces, pulling his jacket closer about his chest. _I suppose I can save the maudlin ponderings for a warmer setting. It's not exactly warm weather out here anymore._

Uryuu navigates his way through the parking lot and the smattering of parked cars (there aren't too many residents here who can afford cars; Uryuu imagines that most of these cars belong to people who have gone into a nearby store and couldn't find any parking spaces there), gleaming dully in shades of red and blue and green. Uryuu recognizes Yamashita-san's beat up old Mercury and wonders when she's ever going to get the busted taillights fixed.

Again, he can't help but find all the routine normality of this situation to be incredibly jarring. After all, Uryuu weaves through cars to get to his apartment every day, and just like any other everyday activity in his life, it seems to be full of artifice. Any moment, he expects a Hollow to peek its head out from behind a Toyota.

As Uryuu nears the complex, his pace picks up speed without him noticing. By the time he gets to his door, his ribs are screaming again and he's stretched out his awareness as far as he can exert it, trying to pick up on any Hollow coming at him before it's too late.

_Calm down. For God's sake, calm down. If there was a Hollow nearby, I'd know. There's no threat here._

Uryuu stands in front of his door and looks at the gold-painted numbers _'1113'. _The third _'1' _is loose and rattles when the door slams; Uryuu wonders if superglue would hold it in place. _Maybe I should ask Yamashita-san if there's anything I can do about it._

_Now where did I put that key?_

Normally, Uryuu would have his key in his left pant pocket; it's a matter of convenience and makes it easy to reach for if he gets home after dark. Today, however, it's not there, and since the door is locked, Uryuu can only assume that he did leave home this morning with his house key. _It must be somewhere in my bag._

After a few moments of rifling through his school bag with increasing desperation, Uryuu nearly hits the roof jumping from the shock of hearing a reedy, distinctly peeved voice right next to him.

"Where did you go this time?"

Red-rimmed blue eyes snap on to Daisuke standing right next to him, scowling blackly and looking quite chilly in shorts and bare feet. The not-quite eight-year-old boy has wandered away from his apartment, having likely spotted Uryuu coming up through the parking lot.

"You little monster," he gasps, struggling to breathe. Once he recovers, Uryuu glowers back at him, wincing internally at how close he was to drawing his bow at the unexpected noise. "I could have really hurt you, you know," he responds shakily, drawing a deep breath through his nose.

Daisuke looks him over critically and scoffs, arms folded about his chest. "How could _you _hurt me?"

"Pray you never find out. What do you want, anyways?"

"Where do you go when you run off?" Daisuke demands, straining himself to his full and utterly unimpressive height. "You run off for days and come back acting like you're high on cocaine. It's really annoying!"

_High… on cocaine? _Uryuu splutters, shaking his head. _Hayagawa-kun and his imagination._ "Do you even know what someone on a bender even looks like?" he retorts sharply.

Daisuke puffs his cheeks full of air. "…Yes," he says defensively, hesitating long enough for Uryuu to know that he's lying; the teenager rolls his eyes. "Yes, I do. Where have you been?" he snaps again, cheeks flushing with color. The boy starts to shiver noticeably.

_Okay, fine. _"I've been fighting a war," Uryuu replies caustically, feeling heat burning away at his neck and cheeks. "I got my hand cut off—" he waves his left hand around for emphasis "—and my best friend stabbed me in the stomach." Uryuu's voice cracks and he breaks off, swallowing hard on a sudden lump in his throat and setting his jaw. _God, why did you have to come up on me right now? _"What do you say to that?" he manages finally, unable to keep his voice completely even.

"I say you're still a lousy liar."

_You asked for it, kid._

"And you still haven't told me where you went!" Daisuke's voice rises steadily on every word. "You can't just go running off all the time!"

Uryuu sucks in a deep breath, closing his eyes tightly shut. _Calm down. The only way to end this conversation is to calm down. _"Hayagawa-kun." His eyes snap open, and Daisuke's scowl deepens. He still thinks that Uryuu calling him that is some sort of attempt to "put on airs"; Uryuu doesn't know how he's ever going to get Daisuke to see that this is just the way he talks, for better or worse. _Just keep calm. I have to keep calm._

"When I "go places", the only person I have to tell about it about beforehand is Yamashita-san," Uryuu explains quietly. His voice sharpens slightly as he goes on. "I am under no obligation to explain myself to you. Now go home, before your father realizes you're gone. You're going to catch cold out here."

Not bothering to see if Daisuke followed his advice, Uryuu turns away and continues to root around through his bag for his key. All he wants to do is sleep.


	191. 191: Shower

**Title**: Shower**  
>AN**: Just tying up a loose end.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>Slamming the door behind him, locking it back and locking the deadbolt as well, Uryuu lets his school bag slide to the floor. The blunted thud it makes is lost totally on Uryuu's ears, but he nudges it out of the way when it collapses against his leg, wincing at the unexpected contact of even an inanimate object. The wind has stopped; there's no battering against his window.<p>

Uryuu does not move from the genkan, staring around the by-now familiar features of his apartment. The still air is almost stagnant and unpleasantly warm—_painfully reminiscent of another place where the wind never blows. _The bare, unadorned walls—it's not like Uryuu has enough extra money to spend on decorations—are as stark as ever, whitewashed and unblemished—_these too, are familiar. _His eyes rove the breadth of his home in no time at all, but he still doesn't move, his heart barely beating.

He doesn't know why he hesitates at all. Nothing's changed about the apartment since Uryuu last set foot in it; Urahara doesn't appear to have stolen anything during his brief stay while Uryuu got changed into more combat-friendly clothes. Everything is just as Uryuu left it, still sparse and Spartan and, frankly, rather forlorn-looking.

From the top of the bookcase stare the picture of his mother and the old sock monkey. Both have such flat eyes, but so very piercing as well. They are both fixtures of his childhood, fixtures he has been dearly fond of in his own way. The photo and the sock monkey represent stability—well, maybe not stability; maybe familiarity, more than anything else, the sense that this is the more familiar world. Looking at them, at the photo and the little stuffed animal, Uryuu doesn't think he's ever felt further away from either than he does now.

Uryuu hasn't eaten since before he left for the desert world, but he doesn't feel even slightly hungry. Nothing has ever felt less appealing than the thought of eating does now. The very concept of eating makes Uryuu's stomach turn. _Maybe tomorrow. Maybe I'll be able to handle eating tomorrow. Right now, I don't think I could eat without being sick._

However, just as Uryuu has not eaten since before he left for Hueco Mundo, he also has not slept since before he left for that world, and tiredness hangs far heavier on him than hunger ever could. Discarding his shoes, turning out the lights and putting his glasses on the nearest available raised surface, Uryuu collapses on the futon couch just to the right of the door, long, spindly fingers curled around the pillow still found there from where he slept there the last night he was home.

Though he had been so tense, so strained, so on edge throughout the day, anticipating attack at every turn, Uryuu gladly relinquishes the tension in his limbs, sinking into the curve of the couch. Uncaring of the fact that it's only eight at night, uncaring that he's still fully dressed, uncaring that the dreams he faces tonight could be more nightmarish than anything life has thrust upon him, Uryuu sinks down into sleep more easily than he ever has before.

-0-0-0-

Uryuu wakes to the pale, grayish dawn light filtering through the white, gauzy curtains over his window. All is silent, no pounding of feet like thunder overhead; it's likely not even eight yet. There's no school today, the mercy of the weekend allowing students of all stripes to sleep in hours later than they would under normal circumstances. Reluctant to leave his resting place, Uryuu pulls the flimsy bed sheet—also pilfered from his bed—back up over his shoulders and just lies there, eyes wide open, staring at nothing in particular, and thinks.

He had expected to be plagued with nightmares after his venture into the abyss. For Uryuu such events have always precipitated bad dreams, monsters and memories still chasing him even after he's back home and the danger has seemingly passed. _I expected to see blood and visions of the dead spread-eagle on the ground. Maybe it would have been my blood, and my corpse, and my eyes staring back at me, as lifeless as marbles._

By all rights, there should have been the old, agonizingly familiar nightly disturbances. In all defiance of the norm, however, there was nothing in the way of nightmares. Uryuu had no nightmares. In fact, he doesn't think he dreamt at all; instead, Uryuu spent sleep in gray, woolen oblivion, able to cast off the bonds of memory, if only for a few hours.

_I should be happier than this; at least I haven't woken up with my heart pounding and every muscle screaming like I've been running a marathon or something. How often have I woken up like that? I don't remember. I ought to be happy, but I don't feel anything. There's nothing there. I just feel… flat._

Uryuu lies awake until the knowledge of all the homework he has to do today—what was given on Friday, as well as Thursday's make-up work—impresses itself upon him enough for him to know that he can't linger in bed any longer. _I may as well get that done now, so I don't have to worry about it on Sunday. Come on, time to get up._

His stiff muscles muster a feeble retort as he clambers away from the futon, but Uryuu ignores them. He stands and sighs softly, reaching for his glasses and sliding them back up the bridge of his nose. With a frown, Uryuu drinks in the still-enveloping silence and he lifts his eyes to the ceiling. There comes not a single footstep, nor the muffled clamor of radio or television set, nor the steady downpour of a shower cap. Surely someone is awake upstairs by now, but Uryuu can detect no signs of life from them or, indeed, from any of his neighbors left or right.

_It might be earlier than I thought._

It occurs to Uryuu that he needs to take his medication. He hasn't taken it since Wednesday morning—he'd forgotten to take it with him to Hueco Mundo, and it completely slipped Uryuu's mind to take it on Friday—and after all the blood he's lost recently, Uryuu knows he could probably do with an iron supplement. When he first started taking his medication, Ryuuken had warned him that if he ever stopped taking it, he would eventually fall ill. Given that, if nothing else, Ryuuken was always brutally honest with him where his health was concerned, this is just another reason Uryuu needs to start taking his medicine again.

_I'll take it after I get a shower_, he decides tiredly. The medication needs to be taken with food, and Uryuu still isn't hungry at all. Maybe something in the hot water of a showerhead will awaken hunger enough for him to stomach eating.

Inside the cramped bathroom, door locked against the threats of the outside world, Uryuu feels his face redden slightly as his eyes light on the medicine cabinet. He hasn't replaced the mirror he broke yet; what his eyes are met with instead is the dull gray surface upon which the mirror was set. Uryuu has a small hand mirror not much larger than a woman's compact; he's been using that lately in place of a proper mirror.

_I'm not sure I want to replace it. If I did that, I'd probably end up just breaking it again, and I don't want to spend another night picking glass shards out of my hand._

Glasses are set down on the porcelain rim of the sink, and Uryuu starts to pull off his shirt before he stops, a cold, hard lump settling in his stomach as he remembers something he had learned while trapped in another world.

_He's probably still watching._

Uryuu's skin crawls at the thought, but he can't bring himself to try to couch the thought that it might not be true. He considers the possibility that there might really be nothing to what Mayuri said, that he might have said what he had about bacteria and surveillance as a means to make Uryuu paranoid and insecure, but never seriously contemplates it. He isn't naïve enough for that.

He had forgotten about Mayuri's admission until now; there were more pressing matters to attend to at the time, and Uryuu had gotten so wrapped up in the struggle to stay alive that he had completely forgotten about what Mayuri had said he'd done to him. Now, however, the fighting is over, and Uryuu remembers all too well.

There's no way for Uryuu to get rid of the bacteria since he doesn't even know what it is; to be capable of doing what Mayuri says it can, it would probably be of artificial origin anyways and immune to any anti-bacterial washes Uryuu could find in a supermarket. It's staying, whether Uryuu wants it to or not.

Mayuri wouldn't cease surveillance just because his subject is now aware that he's being watched. That's not his nature, not his way; he's not going to have the courtesy to quit. From what Uryuu knows of him, it would be more in line for Mayuri to take perverse pleasure in the knowledge that his "subject", aware that he was being watched, would likely become highly uncomfortable performing any of his daily rituals. Likely the only reason Mayuri would ever stop watching would be if he got bored—and how could he, if he really does revel in his subject's discomfort?

Uryuu rubs at his eyes wearily, feeling the lump in his stomach migrate upwards into his chest; even breathing hurts a little, though that might just be the soreness of his ribs raising its voice again. _What am I supposed to do about this? What am I supposed to do?_

When Uryuu first met and later confronted Kurotsuchi Mayuri, he'd held murder in his heart. The first thought on his mind after he put two and two together, after he connected this man with his grandfather and two thousand other Quincy's deaths, after he registered the full meaning of those words, was to kill him. There was blood rushing in his ears and pounding through his veins and an ice so cold it burned like fire settling over his heart. All he'd wanted to do then was kill; that was all he'd wanted.

(_And then, he missed. He hit the chest instead of the head, like he ought to have. _It was an effect of the poison_, Uryuu maintains stubbornly, _affecting my aim. That, and nothing more.)

Upon meeting him again, if Uryuu had been able to walk when he learned that Mayuri had planted bacteria on him for "surveillance purposes", it probably would have taken Renji and Nemu combined to pry his hands off of Mayuri's throat. It wasn't even the old rage at knowing that this man was the reason he and Ryuuken were the last Quincy. It was the fresh, hot-headed rage at learning that someone had, without his knowledge or consent, been watching his every move, day and night, for more than a month; moreover, that the one who had been watching him had probably been doing it so he could get the information needed to capture him and then "experiment" on him until he breathed his very last. At such an invasion, Uryuu still believes that rage was the appropriate response.

And after that…

_I told myself that I still wanted to kill him for what I learned in the Soul Society. I couldn't sort out the rage at learning about having been watched for so long from the rage of the fight that was still going on, couldn't sort that out from everything else. That's what I said, that I still wanted to kill him, when I could barely even lift my head up off of the ground and the whole world was spinning like a carousel._

_There was no other outlet for my anger at that point but to focus it on him. He certainly is a fitting target, isn't he? I doubt I'm the only one who's ever wanted to kill him—I doubt I'm the only one who's ever tried. That's all I could think about then, with the new knowledge. All I could think about was telling myself how much I wanted to kill him. Why did I have to _keep _telling myself that?_

_And what now?_

The past is what it is; nothing can change it. The future may be mutable, but the past is set in stone, and nothing can change what happened there. Ishida Soken is dead and gone; there is no changing that. Uryuu will be watched by Mayuri until he dies or the latter grows bored with his games; there is no changing that. And the future?

Pale fingers rub a forehead furrowed like freshly slept-in bed sheets, as Uryuu looks at the situation with some attempt towards realism. If he pursues a vendetta against Mayuri, there's no way it will end well for him.

If, by some miracle, Uryuu manages to kill Mayuri, it won't be over. He will have killed a Shinigami captain, and Uryuu has no doubt that the weight of the whole organization would crash down on him at lightning speed, and no one on God's green earth or anywhere else would even try to defend him. Killing Mayuri won't bring back the dead; it won't bring back any of the happiness Uryuu saw slip from the cage of his fingers so long ago. All it will do is get him killed as well.

_There's a time when I might have welcomed that. _Maybe once, maybe if Uryuu had discovered the truth during the time when there was nothing he valued and the thought of dying was met with little more than apathy, Uryuu would have pursued his grudge and, even knowing of the consequences of success, he wouldn't have cared. Maybe then. It wouldn't have mattered, if he could just have something as a salve to the burning shriveling his heart. No price would have been too great.

_Back then, I valued nothing; I had no fondness for the concept of my "life." When the thought of dying doesn't bother you, so long as you can die on your own terms, there really is very little left for you to lose. Nothing, in fact. I would have been happy to kill him and face the consequences of that._

_It's… it's different now. I do place value on things. Well, not "things"; "people." There are people I care about, people who care about me. There are people who would probably notice if I died, and might even care. There are people, friends, people I care about, people I couldn't do without. I only really realized that when I backed myself into a corner and couldn't talk to them anymore, but yes, I don't think I could do without them. Dying… I'm not as alright with dying as I used to be._

_I think it's time to throw in the towel._

Uryuu has lost most of what he's ever had, and he still can't say that he has a lot—_though what he does have means the world to him. _If he kills Mayuri, Mayuri wins, because he's managed to take what Uryuu still has. Worse still, because he's managed to get Uryuu to forfeit what he still has with his own hands. If Uryuu kills Mayuri, then he can just imagine the way the man will cackle triumphantly as he leaves for the next life. He's lost a lot, and what he still has, Uryuu isn't about to let anyone take from him. Especially not someone like Kurotsuchi Mayuri.

As for the bacteria, the promises of surveillance, and the knowledge that, whatever else is true, Mayuri is almost certainly still watching?

Setting his jaw resolutely, Uryuu starts again the process of getting undressed to shower.

He won't show weakness, or hesitation, and he won't give Mayuri the satisfaction of knowing that he's gotten to him, that he's made Uryuu think twice about even the most fundamental of his daily rituals. Uryuu has too much pride to let Mayuri win on this score, either. Even if his privacy is forever compromised, he will make the man see that he is not afraid, and maybe, just maybe, Uryuu will be able to chalk that one up as a minor victory.

_It's not like it's anything he hasn't already seen, anyways._


	192. 192: Sorry

**Title**: Sorry**  
>AN**: Won't be long now.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

><p>Ichigo is awake.<p>

Ichigo is awake again, and by all rights Uryuu ought to be happy; if anything, he ought to be ecstatic. All that time—_it feels like an eternity, though rationally Uryuu knows it can't have been that long_—he was out of it, no one was sure if he would recover, if he would die or if he would just stay like that, slumbering until there was gray hair in place of orange and he died of old age. _It would have been the living death then, not truly gone but not among us anymore, either. Surely dying must be better than that. _No one could give answers, and Uryuu knows he was not the only one who lost sleep over praying that he would be alright. But now Ichigo's awake again, and everything ought to be alright.

_You have no idea how happy I was to see you open your eyes. I might not have shown it, but I felt like smiling, I felt like laughing. I'm sorry. It's kind of hard for me to show joy. It used to be that I had to hide all emotion, and I'm still trying to get past that. It used to be that there was no joy in my life at all, and I'm still not used to it, even now. But I am happy. I'm glad you're alive, glad you're awake, glad you're back with us._

_Whether you choose to believe it or just scoff at me like you always do, I am glad._

Now that Ichigo is awake again, everything should be alright. The war is over and there is no longer any threat to be posed by rogue Shinigami or Arrancar; the former are either dead or imprisoned and the latter have no independent interest in the living world, preferring to prey upon lesser Hollows on Hueco Mundo. Everything else is back to normal, and Ichigo awake ought to be the final stone needed to complete the rebuilt wall of normalcy.

_With you awake, we can go back to feeling like this world is right. You're like glue; you know that, don't you? Without you here, we'd all go our separate ways. Without you, I don't think I could maintain a relationship with any of them. Maybe it's selfish of me to want you awake so badly if that's one of the reasons, but really, I don't think I'd be able to hold a relationship with any of them without you._

_And I have missed you. Don't discount that._

Everything ought to be fine now, but it's not. _Of course not. It never is, is it? _Ichigo is awake, alive, and at first glance unharmed, but not without a cost.

In the end, it did come down to it being up to Ichigo to beat Aizen by himself. _It kind of leads one to wonder what happened to the whole 'we've mobilized our forces to be an army' thing. I mean, the Shinigami had a whole army ready to fight or at least try to fight Aizen. What happened to that? Yeah, I know he was supposed to have powers that made it nearly impossible to fight him if you had previously been exposed to his shikai, but Kurosaki can't have been the only one who'd never seen his shikai. It shouldn't have been him alone against Aizen. It shouldn't have been that._

And in the end, Ichigo had beaten Aizen handily. That doesn't come as much of a surprise to Uryuu; Ichigo's stubbornness, his determination, and his reputation as a powerhouse are well-documented. _His level of power seems to increase with literally every fight he gets into. After that little display of his on the dome, I'd be more surprised if he hadn't won. _Ichigo had won, but, it is obvious now, had only managed to win at the cost of all of his spiritual powers, and at the cost of his spiritual awareness itself.

_He's shut off from that world? Forever? _Uryuu cringes at the thought of the sort of emotions that must inspire in Ichigo, that he will never again be able to act as a Shinigami, nor even see the world of the dead, not for as long as he is alive. Ichigo keeps his feelings close to his chest and maintains a stoic face, but Uryuu knows that it must be eating him alive inside.

_At the very least, it must hurt to know that he can't see any of the friends he made among the Shinigami, not unless they show up in gigai. Especially Kuchiki-san._

The day is dim and gray, dark clouds threatening rain and even going so far as to let out the discontented grumblings of thunder, but the rain itself is never able to make good on its threats, thwarted and frustrated. This weather, Uryuu decides, must reflect Ichigo's present mood perfectly.

They are alone on the sidewalk; no one else is walking this way right now. _Or maybe there are others, but they have simply faded away, like pillars of smoke that dissipate with a breath of fresh air. Maybe Uryuu and Ichigo are in a crowd of people, but they have all become as glass and they two are the only ones who remain of flesh._ Ichigo is hanging around a bus stop, apparently waiting for a bus. Uryuu stands roughly ten feet away, clutching the strap of his school bag self-consciously, burning holes into the back his head and wondering what he should say.

_He looks so flat, like a paper cutout. There's no life there at all, no pulse, no buzzing, even though he's not dead. This isn't how a person is supposed to look; even with the most minimal amount of spiritual energy, everyone has the pulse, but not him._

_Of course, everything looks flat now. It's not like anything looks real anymore. Why should he?_

Up until now, Uryuu had wanted to talk to Ichigo about what happened on the dome, to finally be able to talk about it, but that doesn't really seem appropriate anymore. _Bringing that up was always going to be unpleasant; I know that. But now, it will only be more painful, because it will only serve to remind him of what he lost. I can't talk about that._

_But what am I supposed to do? What use are the empty platitudes of consolation? Commiseration? I am unequipped to commiserate._

As it stands, yes, Uryuu is upset on Ichigo's behalf, but he's not sure that he can identify his motives for such sentiment as being entirely selfless. _The only reason we ever really formed a relationship or even associated at all was because he was fighting this fight, and so was I. His need to fight and my capacity to help was the only thing that bound us together. I have no faith in such things like "camaraderie" and "affection" to do the same; I know better than that. The moment I stopped being useful was the moment I could no longer help him, and that would be the moment when I became irrelevant to all of this. He was fighting the fight, fighting a war; he wouldn't have been able to afford to think about me if I couldn't help._

_Now he no longer has the means to fight, and even if he did, there's nothing in the scope of what he would face from normal Hollows that would require my assistance. Now, there are no longer any battles to fight, and he can't fight at all. Where does that leave me? He doesn't really need me anymore. Where am I left in the grand scheme of things?_

_So I can't say that my motivations are all that selfless. If that's the case, I'd be a hypocrite for even trying to console him, and really, what could I say that wouldn't make the pain worse? It's not like I have experience comforting people; I'd probably make him feel worse._

On the most superficial level, Uryuu can empathize with what Ichigo is going through now. He too once had to live without his powers and the knowledge that every step he took was a step further away from the ghostly plane.

All too easy to summon are the memories of the frustration, of the pain, of the thwarted bitterness, of wondering _Why did this have to happen? _Uryuu had wandered around in a haze with a constant burning at the corner of his eyes, not wanting to talk to anyone, wanting only to stew in his pain until it either wore itself out or devoured him whole, and at least granted him oblivion in place of regret.

_I lost my powers once too, and however slowly, I was losing my spiritual awareness as well. Give it another couple of months, and I probably wouldn't have been able to see spirits or Shinigami or Hollows anymore. I know how much that hurts. It's like losing a limb and then being expected to carry it around with you afterwards; your cross to bear, never letting you move on, never letting you forget what you lost. There are reminders of what you used to have everywhere you go, and you can never talk about it. I know about that sort of pain, Kurosaki. Believe me, I do._

(No one ever really talked to Uryuu when he lost his powers. Well, except Orihime, but Uryuu's not sure that that counts, since she didn't really know what was going on; she thought something more general was wrong. Urahara too, but he didn't seem all that interested in the effect it had on him emotionally, despite claims to the contrary. Then again, Uryuu never said anything to them, and never tried to open a dialogue about it either.

_What could I have said? _

Maybe if he had talked, maybe if he had tried to talk to someone, things would have gone differently for him. It had just stung so much that he couldn't find the words, couldn't stand to talk. But Uryuu can understand why Ichigo wouldn't be keen on talking about his own troubles.)

_I don't think I have any right to try to commiserate, though. Yes, he and I have both experienced the anguish of having something so fundamental to our lives taken away from us; worse still, because it flew away as the result of our own actions. But we did it for such different reasons…_

Ichigo's reasons for sacrificing his powers and spiritual awareness were wholly selfless. The only way it could even remotely be construed as otherwise was that Aizen certainly would have killed him if he hadn't give his all in the fight. What Ichigo did was for the sake of everyone; family, friends, acquaintances, total strangers, everyone. He had sacrificed his powers to beat Aizen, so that the rogue Shinigami would not be able to kill anyone else. He hadn't done it for himself.

Uryuu, on the other hand, offered up his powers for the sake of retribution. All he'd wanted to do was kill one man, the rest of the world be damned; the only people Uryuu had thought about when he removed the Sanrei Glove were himself, and those who were no longer around to benefit from revenge. Ichigo had no choice but to do what he did, but Uryuu had had a choice, and whatever suffering he went through, he had brought upon himself.

_If Kurosaki's reasons were wholly selfless, my reasons were wholly selfish. He was thinking about all of us when he fought Aizen; I completely forgot about what I was doing in the Soul Society in the first place when I fought Kurotsuchi. Our situations aren't comparable at all, and trying to say _'I know how you feel' _would be gross hypocrisy._

Uryuu opens his mouth; his throat goes dry as a parched desert. _What do I say? I have to say something; what do I say to him? _The moments continue on in silence, and Uryuu still grapples with his words. _I wonder when he'll realize I'm here. I can imagine; he'll turn around, see me gaping like a fish and mock me. I almost hope he will jeer; anything to see him behaving normally again._

_What do I say to you?_

"…I'm sorry," Uryuu finally chokes out, feeling he's just loosed a heavy stone from his windpipe. His lungs burn and he wants, wants for Ichigo to acknowledge the words.

No response ever comes. Ichigo doesn't even seem to hear him or notice him standing there, for he doesn't turn his head. He keeps his back turned and his eyes trained on the road, like he's the only person in the whole world, like Uryuu is just some soft breath of wind.

It hurts. Uryuu doesn't think he has any right to feel hurt (_whatever pain I feel, it's nothing compared to what he must be going through_), but it still hurts. Whether Ichigo hasn't heard him or he's just ignoring him, there's a sharp stinging sensation in his stomach.

Uryuu considers trying to get Ichigo's attention again, but thinks better of it. _It won't help, and he doesn't want to listen. _Instead, Uryuu turns around, and starts to walk home, hoping it won't rain on him.

_Why couldn't I think of anything to say that would have made a difference? _Uryuu fiddles with the strap of his bag again and bites his lip. The sky snarls again with thunder, but he doesn't hear.


	193. 193: Maybe

**Title**: Maybe**  
>AN**: Not much to say here. Next chapter should be up tomorrow or Saturday.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>As the days wear on, bit by bit, normalcy starts to be restored.<p>

Granted, it's not perfect in every single way. Uryuu and Ichigo still haven't spoken; Uryuu is afraid of what a talk would become (And angry with himself for being afraid in the first place). Obviously, he can't pretend to know Ichigo's mind, but those eyes of his have a constant cloud over them, as though, in his heart, he's a million miles away. Uryuu wouldn't be surprised if Ichigo preferred distant remembrances to reality right now.

Uryuu hasn't really been able to spend much time with the others, either. Sado is off doing whatever it is he does, and they don't speak during class anyway; Uryuu didn't expect anything different from him. Orihime has firmly re-established herself within her group of girl friends. The gaunt, purplish shadows have finally started to fade from beneath her eyes, something Uryuu notes with welcome relief, and the smiles she shows actually look real again, but there's a new heaviness in her eyes that wasn't there before. _She looks older._

And there are the nightmares. The oblivion in dreaming that Uryuu was granted the first few nights he was back from Hueco Mundo was, it seems, nothing more than an all-too-short reprieve. The dreams that have begun to assault him are like the ones he used to have as a child, but more intense. Hollows ripping into his flesh and tearing him apart, the screams, the roars. The thrill of fear inspired by the chase, panting, heart pounding, feet hitting the earth at breakneck speed and that same earth shuddering with some eldritch creature in close pursuit. Even during the waking hours, Uryuu still feels as though he'll have to break into a run or pull back on the bowstring at any moment. The paranoia of waiting is inescapable.

So, if Uryuu wants to look at it really hard, it isn't really normalcy at all. However, his life has always been this dysfunctional, so it's rather hard to tell the difference between normality and life thrown into chaos anymore.

The only claim to real normalcy he can make is that the number of Hollows roaming the shadows and deserted places of Karakura Town are back to their normal numbers. No Arrancar slipping through the veil either; just normal Hollows preying on the dead and the living now.

_Well, the homework's back to normal too, _Uryuu muses ruefully, tapping his pencil against the side of his head and hoping the card table he uses as a kitchen table doesn't give way under the weight of his textbooks._ Everybody's back in school, and the teachers have no compunction about swamping us all under. Oh yes, that is definitely normal._

If he's honest with himself, Uryuu can't really say that he's complaining about having so much homework to do. None of it is all that difficult in and of itself; all the material are things Uryuu's class has already gone over, and he's had no difficulty grasping the material. It's not difficult, just time-consuming.

And maybe Uryuu's glad to have something that can consume his thoughts and save him from the ordeal of having to think about anything else. Homework, though time-consuming and monotonous, is just engrossing enough that Uryuu can banish any other thought from his mind when he works at it.

_At least when I'm doing math problems or filling in a fill-in-the-blank sheet about the Edo period, that's all I'm able to think about it. At least my mind doesn't go to other things. There's no worrying about Hollows and feeling like there's one breathing down my neck right now. There's that mercy, at least._

It seems, however, that the mercy given to him extends only to being able to go without worrying about Hollows. As he does his homework, the scratch of his pencil against paper the only sound at all, Uryuu's mind strays to other things.

Uryuu still hasn't managed to talk to Ichigo. _It all keeps coming back to that, doesn't it? Why do I keep thinking about it, even now? It only hurts; why do I keep thinking about him?_

Part of Uryuu wants to reach out and talk to him, even knowing that he has no right to call his experiences comparable to Ichigo's. Ichigo thinks he's alone—that much is obvious. _Does he even know that I lost my powers in the first place? While I don't mind him not knowing, it would be interesting. _Uryuu knows how it is to be alone, to have no one he can talk to. He knows how agonizing the sense of complete, suffocating isolation is, and doesn't think that anyone should ever have to suffer through that. Especially not Ichigo.

_I might not be able to commiserate on the loss of powers, but I do know how it is to be alone. He shouldn't have to think that he is alone; he's not. If I could just find my tongue long enough to tell him so…_

But another part of Uryuu, the part that holds greater sway, keeps him from stepping forward and speaking.

Uryuu has already tried to speak once, and Ichigo had his ears closed to him. _How would he respond if I tried again, and this time in a way that he could not ignore, nor pretend he had no heard? _It might have been his own wavering, the weakness in his heart that kept his words from carrying, or maybe, the reason for silence at the bus stop was that Ichigo did not want to hear.

It could be that Ichigo does not want to talk about what he has lost, and instead prefers to dwell on his loss within the confines of his own mind, unspoken. It could be that Ichigo would not welcome the efforts of others to get him to talk about the fact that he can no longer see spirits. If that's the case, Uryuu's efforts, however well-meaning, would be construed as rubbing salt in an angry, gaping wound.

_Does he know me well enough to know I wouldn't do that? Does he know that I wouldn't try to hurt him like that? I can't be sure. We bickered constantly, back when we talked, and we don't talk anymore. I can't say if he knows me well enough, beyond all that, to know that I wouldn't' say it to hurt him._

If Uryuu tried to make Ichigo feel better, only for Ichigo to think he was digging the knife deeper…

_I don't want to think about it. _Uryuu has been rejected before, his nature deemed unacceptable and his presence abhorrent. If he went so far, if he bared his heart and held his neck out for a blade, only to be rejected, Uryuu's not sure what within him would break. Be it his trust, his faith, his mind or his heart, he knows something would break. He just doesn't know what.

_I shouldn't be afraid now. I've faced death and prevailed. This shouldn't scare me as much as it does. _But it does frighten Uryuu, and though his stomach bubbles with hot, sickening shame, he still does not approach his friend.

_Maybe he's just beyond me now. _

Uryuu remains out of contact with the others as well. Rukia and Renji have withdrawn to the Soul Society; no doubt that place is still recovering from the revelations that rocked it. If they come back, it won't be soon; _I do want to see them, though. _He and Sado simply do not have the points of familiarity needed for a lasting relationship—now that the threat is gone and Orihime is safe, they have gone their separate ways. _I don't really think we were ever "friends" in the truest sense of the word to begin with._

As for Orihime, Uryuu feels like there's a wall there. He feels as though there is between him and her a barrier as solid and impenetrable as one of Orihime's glittering golden shields. There exists the desire to talk to her, a flame that burns as brightly as what tries to compel him to speak to Ichigo. Not to comfort, not to console, not to commiserate, but just to talk. Talking to Orihime, merciful, friendly Orihime, poses no danger; she will not reject him, never. But something holds him back here too, and Uryuu only watches from a distance, never approaching.

Looking at his own behavior, Uryuu wonders if he isn't regressing, if he isn't falling back on the mechanisms he used to cope with life as it is before he met Ichigo. Alone now, he's using the same methods he did to keep from cracking like a fragile egg; silence, avoidance, and burying himself in work. _I don't want to go back to that, but it does seem inevitable._

_Enough. _Uryuu shakes his head to banish these needling thoughts, and gets back to work. This homework isn't going to finish itself, and the hours continue to slip away no matter how slowly time seems to pass in troubling contemplations and the frustration of knowing he's hit a glass ceiling of sorts.

Dark black eyebrows knit as Uryuu stares down at the worksheet. He's having trouble making the words connect; his mind is still so jumbled. In vain, Uryuu tries to refocus his attention on the task at hand, but soon enough, all too soon, his musings start to shift in another direction.

Ryuuken behaved… _oddly _towards him when they last met.

Since running into him after returning, Uryuu has tried his best not to think about Ryuuken. There's been so much hanging like leaden weights on his shoulders and around his ankles that Uryuu didn't want to add thoughts of him to the clutter. _Thinking about him only would have made everything so much worse. _Now, however, the mind has touched on this topic, and try as he might, Uryuu can't break the connection.

_He really did act oddly that night. _When Uryuu saw Ryuuken again, he had expected there to be anger from him. After all, Uryuu had broken the terms of their agreement—his powers back for a cessation of contact with the Shinigami and their associates—and Ryuuken isn't the sort of man to suffer oath-breakers gladly. Quite the contrary.

Uryuu had expected to be assaulted with the icy blast of Ryuuken at his angriest, but instead, he never spoke. Ryuuken looked at him for a long time, mouth slightly open and an unreadable expression on his face. _Or maybe it wasn't so unreadable, and Uryuu just doesn't want to face the emotions he saw in the man's face. Maybe that's it. _He never said a word, just rested a hand on Uryuu's shoulder, and for a moment, a wild, desperate moment, Uryuu saw something different.

_Maybe… Maybe he wasn't angry that night, because he's not angry at all. _Uryuu hasn't seen Ryuuken since that encounter; he doesn't know if his emotions have changed since then. But Ryuuken wasn't angry with him that night; Uryuu could detect nothing of anger in the man's face, in his stance or his actions. No anger. None at all.

The thought that Ryuuken isn't angry with him after all… Well, Uryuu isn't sure how to think of that. He certainly wouldn't be upset to not have to face Ryuuken's wrath. Anything is better than Ryuuken when he's angry, for all the emotions such a thing excites within Uryuu. But the implications of that?

_It's probably too far-fetched to think that he's not angry, because if he's not angry with me for breaking my promise, then that would mean that maybe he's changed his opinions of me. How many times have I wished for that, wished for him to think better of me than he does? I would have given anything when I was a child to know I had his love, his affection, or even just his approval. But now, now when I think I might finally have something, it's just too unlikely. I can't believe that he wouldn't suddenly change his mind about me like this._

_Or maybe I can. Maybe I can make myself believe it._

The pencil is set on the table, and Uryuu leans back in his chair, his fingertips brushing his lips, eyes glazed over. His heart swells and he nearly smiles, only able to quell it with the vicious control he's developed over the years.

It might well be too much to hope for. A reversal won't make things better, won't take back the years of fear and suffering, won't give back the ability to feel joy so easily that he once had. He doesn't think that Ryuuken will ever really love him, nor even feel all that affectionate towards him; at best, if there has been a reversal of thoughts on his part, it means he might have decided to accept the lifestyle Uryuu has chosen. _But even that would be enough. If I can just have this one thing… Please, if I can just have this…_

Uryuu breathes in the air deeply, plucks up his pencil and continues on with work. It's easier to concentrate now, and the words don't run together as much as they used to.

_Maybe I can have this._


	194. 194: Normal

**Title**: Normal**  
>AN**: Well, here we are at the finish line; this is the last chapter. To everybody who's been reading, I hope you enjoyed the ride, and to those of you who gave feedback, thank you. See you in the funny papers.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Bleach.

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><p>When he gets word that Ryuuken wants to speak to him, Uryuu goes only with trepidation. However much he's willing to admit that he has no idea why Ryuuken wants to talk to him, he does know that the conversation is supposed to take place in the old house. No matter how much everything else might change, Uryuu will never be able to regard his childhood home as anything but a prison.<p>

_He didn't sound angry, _Uryuu muses hopefully as he nears the place where he had once lived. _Maybe he wants to talk about something else._

That's Uryuu's dearest hope, that when they speak, Ryuuken won't bring up the broken promise and his departure from the training area. He wants things to be different this time, for whatever sort of conversation they have not to devolve into accusations and bitterness. He's tired of arguments, tired of the anger, tired of everything.

_After everything that's happened, I don't want to argue with you anymore. Don't you think I want things to be better this time? Don't you think I always hope that things will be better, and that we can finally stop trying to rip each other's throats out? Please don't have called me here just to argue._

Those hopes are dashed when Uryuu hears the words "So… You went to Hueco Mundo," spoken in a dry, but unmistakably sharp tone, a pointed question hidden inside of a statement. Knots gripping his stomach with a cold hand, Uryuu braces himself for what comes next.

_Maybe it will still be alright. _Those words see more feeble now, but Uryuu, trying to be hopeful, is careful to keep his tone mild when he speaks. "Yes, I did."

The sun is sinking over rooftops and naked trees, flooding the office with ruddy crimson light. Ryuuken is standing close to a bookcase, flipping through one of his heavy texts. He seems more comfortable letting his eyes peruse the explanation of some complicated surgery than he is with gazing upon his son, who stands a few feet away, hovering near the doorway for a quick escape if one is needed. The chilly air grows close and thick, more difficult to breathe with every passing moment.

This scene closely mirrors one of ten years ago, Ryuuken initiating a confrontation without even looking Uryuu in the eye, and Uryuu on the defensive, waiting apprehensively for the next words, hope fading like dew assaulted by the dawn sun. _I won't give in to fear of him like I did then, though. This whole thing is daunting, but I will keep my head. I'm not dwarfed by him like I used to be; I can nearly look him in the eye now. I won't be ruled by fear of him. I will stand my ground._

In the otherwise resounding silence, Ryuuken's sigh is as loud as the roaring of the wind during a typhoon. "And you went there because a friend of yours had been kidnapped, correct?"

Uryuu nods cautiously, fingernails biting so deeply into his palms that he expects a copper tang to permeate the air at any moment. "Yes, I did." _And nothing you say to me will ever be enough to make me regret it, _he adds silently.

Crisp pages crack the air as they are turned, Ryuuken flipping through the book in search of a particular page. "Correct me if I am wrong," Ryuuken says, with the sort of tone that indicates that "corrections" will not be considered even remotely welcome. "The friend who was abducted, one Inoue Orihime, is a close associate of the Shinigami, and the two you went to rescue her with are also associates of the Shinigami."

No answer comes, either in the way of affirmation or denial. From the half-view Uryuu has of Ryuuken's face, he can see his eyes narrowing, but he can't discern any of the emotions connected with that action. "Furthermore, the only reason any of the three of you were able to cross into Hueco Mundo at all was through the intervention of the Shinigami, Urahara-san."

_He is going there after all. _Again, Uryuu says nothing, and after a moment's wait, Ryuuken continues on. "Unless there is something about the situation that I am misinterpreting, you have broken the terms of our agreement not to associate with the Shinigami or their companions any longer." Ryuuken's voice is suddenly even colder than the frigid 69°F air. "Would you care to explain yourself, Uryuu?"

There comes silence again, but not because Uryuu is lost for words. The hard, boiling lump in his throat seems to set his skin on fire, uneven patches of color forming at the top of his cheeks. _Why does it have to come to this? There are so many things I could say, so many explanations, and he won't accept any of them, I'm sure. Loopholes mean nothing to him; they are nothing more than a lousy way to mask disobedience. I doubt he would respond to any attempts to appeal to a sense of compassion… Ha! _What _sense of compassion?_

Ryuuken's lip curls, both derisive and bitter. "Have you nothing to say, Uryuu?" he asks, and Uryuu doesn't think he's imagining the mocking note buried deep within the voice made hoarse and ragged by a decades-long smoking habit. "Won't you make some attempt to defend your actions? Or have you simply given up on speech?"

_If you really want it… _Uryuu can keep silent no longer; the myriad caustic words eroding his throat won't let him. "Urahara-san came and found me, and told me what had happened." His voice is quieter than what Uryuu thought it would be; still, he can barely keep that same voice from cracking on the enunciation of every word. "How could I just sit by without doing anything, knowing what I did?"

"Because you had given your word not to," Ryuuken answers immediately, strangely businesslike in the way he hammers out each word. "I never said it would be easy, Uryuu, and you must have known that yourself. You never agreed that you would keep your word gladly, only that you would keep it. And you couldn't even do that."

_There really is nothing in him I can appeal to, _Uryuu realizes, gritting his teeth. _Why does it have to be like this? Why does it always have to be like this?_

"If that's the case, then keeping a promise would make me a pretty poor friend," Uryuu retorts hotly. "What kind of person doesn't go help their friends when they're in danger?"

"And you don't think that agreeing to cut off contact with them in the first place _doesn't _make you a poor friend?" Ryuuken scoffs, and Uryuu feels his face burn hot with shame. _Don't go there. Not again. Don't you dare. _All Uryuu can think of now is how badly he wants to leave. "Uryuu, if you didn't know what abiding by the terms of our agreement would be difficult, then your sense of foresight is woefully deficient. I don't care how much it hurt, or how much what Urahara-san said frightened you; you should have kept your word. There is no excuse for violating the terms of a clearly-worded contract. No excuse whatsoever."

The crisp sound of turning pages has long since ceased. Ryuuken's eyes no longer scan the pages—instead, they go straight through the book itself—but Uryuu takes no pleasure in knowing that he's managed to break Ryuuken's icy composure. He feels as though his bones will catch fire at any moment, and the lump in his throat grows harder and heavier with each breath.

_Breathe. Remember to breathe. I can't live if I don't breathe. But for God's sake, what's so good about living anyways?_

"Fine," he mutters, staring down at the floor; Uryuu's shoulders slump, slightly, the heat suddenly starting to dissipate. "Fine. If that's how you look at this, then I guess I have broken my promise. I did go running off with the Shinigami and their "associates"," he spits bitterly. "But I don't care what you think of that. If loyalty to my friends means breaking a promise made to you, then I think I know what I'm going to choose."

_You've never given me much reason to feel any loyalty towards you. This might be the last conversation we ever have, and I really didn't want it to go like this, but you must know that. If I am loyal to anyone, it's to people who have actually shown signs of caring about me beyond the fact that they're obliged to make sure that I live to see adulthood._

"So you admit that your word is worthless?" Ryuuken's incisive tone cuts far deeper beneath Uryuu's skin than it ought to; his unmoving eyes still hover over the book he holds.

_Why won't you just let it lie and let me leave? Why do you have to drag this out every time? Why do I have to keep rising to the bait? Can't we just reach some agreement, go our separate ways and never talk to each other again? That's probably the best way this could end?_

In this moment, Uryuu wishes he could hate him. Stinging with disappointment and bitterness, there are no words to describe how much he wishes he could hate Ryuuken. If he could hate him, truly hate him and feel no other emotions towards him, then Uryuu would be able to cut off all ties to Ryuuken with ease. Uryuu would be able to go his whole life without seeing him again and never feel so much as a pang of guilt. And if he could hate him, these arguments, these disappointments wouldn't hurt the way that they do.

But he can't. There's still feeling, still emotions there that have nothing to do with hate. No matter what Ryuuken acts like now, Uryuu can still remember the days when he was a little kinder, a little more like a human being, a little more like a father. It was such a long time ago, and even then, Uryuu was never given much, but he can't forget it no matter how hard he tries. _Why couldn't it have just stayed like that? Would it really have been so bad? Compared to what things are like between us now, back then was positively heaven._

"If that's what it takes to make you let me leave…" Uryuu squeezes his eyes tightly shut, drawing his tongue over his dry lips "…then yes, I do." _Okay, fine. You got what you wanted; I've debased myself for your amusement. Now just let me go._

Ryuuken slams the book shut with one hand and puts it back on the shelf. Then, he looks at Uryuu for the first time since Uryuu came here.

Unlike the conversation they had ten years, when Ryuuken gave his terse, still-perplexing explanation of his antipathy towards the Quincy lifestyle, Ryuuken has not totally retained his composure. There's something tugging at the corner of his lip, making it curl back to reveal his teeth. Emotion sparks like firecrackers behind his eyes; though Uryuu can't be entirely sure, he thinks what he sees is anger, or at least irritation.

_You're always looking for an excuse to be angry with me, aren't you? Anything to put me in my place again. _That face is taut as bed sheets trying to cover a bed too small. Uryuu can't help but meet his eyes, no matter how little he wants to do anything but turn his eyes away and flee.

After a long moment of this, no one daring to speak, Ryuuken nods briskly. "Alright, then." Before Uryuu can make a move to leave, he goes on. "There will be no further training; there's no longer any point to that, I think. I can imagine how fervently relieved you are to hear that," Ryuuken needles caustically.

A burst of flame flares in Uryuu's stomach. "Anything else?" he asks tightly.

"Yes." Ryuuken reaches for a thick manila expanding file folder sitting on his desk and abruptly tosses it in Uryuu's direction. Uryuu barely manages to lift his hands in time to catch the file folder before it hits him in the face. Even then, he fumbles with the file and nearly drops it. _It's heavy, _he realizes, frowning down at it. _What's in it?_

Ryuuken seems to sense Uryuu's unasked question. "The rest of your grandfather's notes; I have no further use for them." Uryuu stares incredulously at him; _What? _"Take them and get out," Ryuuken states dismissively. He goes back to perusing through books, pointedly ignoring his son.

Uryuu is all too glad to leave.

-0-0-0-

After Uryuu is gone, Ryuuken puts his book down and sighs heavily, staring out the window. The daylight is nearly gone now; he really ought to turn on his desk lamp if he wants to see enough to be able to get out of the room without running into a bookcase.

_Well… That went about as well as I expected it to._

Ryuuken remembers the emotions that had flooded him when he saw Uryuu for the first time after the boy came back from Hueco Mundo. In that moment, all anger, disapproval, irritation and everything else he thought he felt disappeared like smoke blown away by the wind. Instead, there was numbness, and an odd tightening in his throat, and the urge to say something, not admonition but something else, even if those words were never actualized.

_What was that, anyways? _Completely unexpected, the jolt of emotion had kept Ryuuken from saying anything, and eventually, with a strange suggestion of a smile on his face, Uryuu sidestepped him, and continued on towards his apartment. They said nothing that night.

The strange emotions were banished soon enough, as Ryuuken remembered exactly what Uryuu had done, and what still had to be said to him. Now, he sits at his desk and balances his fingers, spread far across the stiff cover.

_I gave the boy the rest of his grandfather's notes. What he does with them is none of my business. Now that the Shinigami have stopped fighting one another and the danger has passed, there's no longer any need to have him come to the hospital for "training." And if he wants to disregard the terms of our agreement, then I no longer care about it. I know his opinions, know his nature, know his foolishness. The promise is broken; no use crying over spilled milk. Uryuu can do what he wants._

Uryuu will probably go back to hunting Hollows after the fall of night soon, if he hasn't already. Even with the training he's received, even with the improved focus and execution of hirenkyaku, the boy's so reckless that he could very well have survived fights with Arrancar only to be killed by a regular Hollow.

Ryuuken grits his teeth and rubs his forehead; _Ah, there's the pain again. _For a moment, Ryuuken reflects that he didn't spend a month drilling Uryuu, losing a great deal of sleep and energy in the process, just for the boy to go and get himself killed, something jolting in his chest, but Ryuuken banishes the thought irritably.

Uryuu is old enough to make his own decisions, old enough to do what he wants. If doing what he wants entails getting himself killed, then so be it. _I don't care anymore. I don't._

-0-0-0-

_I should have known better. I was so stupid. What sort of sign did he ever give me to make me think that things would be different this time?_

Uryuu adjusts the stiff collar of his school uniform's jacket, standing on the sidewalk outside of the old house. The strap of his bag cuts into his shoulder, and sliding the folder given to him among the textbooks, binders and pencils doesn't make it any better, but Uryuu ignores the pain driving into his skin and instead stares fiercely at the pavement, struggling to swallow on the bile in his throat.

_I go off somewhere where I could easily be killed and when I get back, all he wants to talk about is the fact that I broke a promise I made to him in order to do it. He doesn't ask if I'm alright, doesn't ask if I was hurt, doesn't even seem to care that I _could _have been killed. That's normal for him, I guess. But why couldn't it have been different tonight?_

_Why do I fool myself into believing that it will be different? He hasn't changed, and neither have I. Unless we become completely different people than what we are now, things are never going to be better._

_That doesn't mean I didn't want them to be._

Swallowing hard, forcing down all the anger still clinging stubbornly to his throat and the inside of his chest, Uryuu casts one long, last look at the house, not knowing if he will ever be able to tear his eyes again. He can't honestly say he was ever really happy here; there aren't too many happy memories of significant weight that he can attach to this house. This was really more the place he went to after school and slept at than anything else. 'Home' was probably too strong a term no matter how old Uryuu was; there wasn't anything about it that was all that 'homey.' But still…

_I wonder why he gave me those notes. It's not like he's ever really been all that enthusiastic about "enabling me." Then again, if he was so determined not to "enable me", he probably wouldn't have made me come to the hospital nearly every night for a month and had me train. He wouldn't have taught me anything. _

_You say you don't want me going after Hollows, and then you turn around and teach me how to better fight them, and then you give me Grandfather's notes. Don't you have any idea just how contradictory your behavior is? Does what you do make any sense even to you? Or are you just as confused as I am?_

_Come on, I have to go. _Uryuu would rather not still be out here when Ryuuken emerges to smoke a few cigarettes, as he does nearly every night—if he's continued the habit, that is. That would be disastrous, would probably only lead to another argument, and right now, Uryuu doesn't think he's ever wanted to argue less in his life. _Why couldn't it have been better?_

_Oh, wait, I know why. We haven't changed at all. We're too similar. We tear at each other, do everything we can to poke, needle, hurt, wound. We just can't stand seeing contentment on the other's face—we do everything we can to make them be in pain._

_Trying to believe it could ever be otherwise… I… Trying to believe that… was probably just a delusion on my part. A pipe dream, that's all it was. A fantasy, a child's ill-thought, ill-executed fantasy. Just a… Just a stupid dream._

Uryuu sighs, and finally tears his gaze away the house. _Goodbye._ He pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose, and starts the long walk towards home.


End file.
